Thursday, December 03, 2009

Durbin and Feinstein don't like citizen journalists

Billy Dennis a huge favor by visiting the Daily Kos, where he discovered that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) voted twice against shielding citizen journalists. You know, people like me, or Dennis.

From Kos via Peoria Pundit:

Basically, Feinstein and Durbin want to restrict shield law protections for those who are either salaried employees or contractors of big media. If not, it's basically f**k you.

This isn't a partisan issue, it's one between those who are so stuck in the past, that they can't fathom a more diverse and expansive media environment — one that is no longer dominated by the NY Times and the TV.

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2 comments:

Billy Dennis said...

You know, it would be ONE thing if they put their names to a bill that shielded journalists but happened to define "journalist" as someone who was paid to do it. That could be explained by an oversight. But the fact that others took the effort to include citizen journalists. And then Feinstein and Durbin SPECIFICALLY offered an amendment to SPECIFICALLY block us.

Are these two in the pocket of the MSM industry?

Marathon Pundit said...

I dunno what to think. New media, not just myself, aren't kind to Durbin. I'm surprised by Feinstein, she lives in San Fransisco, where Technorati is based, and Yahoo, Apple...and a whole bunch of others are nearby SF.