Shield law defines journalist and now provides protection for web journalists

The Free Flow of Information Act of 2009, which has passed through the House and the Senate and still pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee (to be decided on shortly) finishes with a definition of who qualifies as a journalist and would therefore qualify for coverage under the law. The original definition was that of a reporter being someone who was covered under the shield law, was a writer who wrote with the purpose of disseminating the news with significant financial gain. However, the legislation has gone through several remedies, some of which were those to the definitions as paraphrased above. The act now will provide protection for online journalists, which we have found to not normally be the case in most other aspects of business it is a struggle for the independent, online media spectrum to be acknowledged as more than bloggers or for others to recognize it as a skilled profession, just as print is, but with a different medium. The bill was also changed to provide protection to independent journalists that don't necessarily make an income because they are possibly starting a new independent outlet, or perhaps just providing content to such an outlet, like many do as part of the Huffington Post. However, the Free Flow of Information act now takes into account different aspects of the indy media realm. This can be seen as a large step, although smaller town governments still provide harsher terms and don't accept independent bloggers, the federal government has at least put parameters in place for the larger government (federal government) to not only acknowledge it, but put it on the same playing field as the traditional mainstream media.