A journalist — according to the State of Oregon’s Revised Statutes 44.520(1), listed under “Media Persons as Witnesses” — is a “person connected with, employed by or engaged in any medium of communication to the public.”

A “medium of communication” to which they are a part of is defined by ORS 44.510(2) as “any newspaper, magazine or other periodical, book, pamphlet (which harks back to early news distribution), news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system.” @@Same link as above.@@
This is quite an expansive list, but notice anything missing?
The blog and the blogger.
If taken out of the hands of the Emerald and placed independently online by me, what I write in this weekly column would be exactly that: a blog. Were I to take what I wrote in my blog and printed it for simple distribution by me, it would perhaps become labelled a pamphlet and fall within Oregon’s medium of communication definition. As such, I would then be protected by the state’s shield law.
However, because a blog (and by reference its author) does not have its own category, it is outside this protection.
In other words, the blogger, according to the State, is not a “person connected with, employed by or engaged in any medium of communication to the public;” that is, a journalist.
I think it would pretty simple to say that all Oregon needs to do is include the word “blog” in ORS 44.510(2).  Boom. Done.
Right?
Recently in the Cox v. Obsidian Financial Group case@@ http://www.scribd.com/doc/74870113/Crystal-Cox-Opinion@@, a federal judge decided that — among other issues — a blogger is not a journalist for the simple fact that a blog is not listed as a medium of communication under the state’s shield law.
Quite simply, he just interpreted the law as laid down by the legislature. Whether a blogger is indeed a journalist was asked by many, including The New York Times, which asked the J-school’s First Amendment scholar, Kyu Youm, to be one of four discussion moderators@@ http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/12/11/are-all-bloggers-journalists@@.
I don’t think this case will be overruled. It will, perhaps, spur the Oregon legislature to plug in “blog” into its statute’s list, however. But I am a bit cautious because I think the defamation aspect in the above mentioned case touched upon a related issue.
In terms of actual content created any medium of communication listed above, they could sued for libel for what they themselves not only publish in the real world, but also what they — including the case of the blogger — publish to their Internet websites (e.g., story, opinion, letter to the editor, etc.).
As of now, were they to allow a comment to something published online that was defamatory, they and the person posting the comment could not be sued for libel.
The hosts are, in these cases, immune from liability as long as the content posted is provided by a third party. Which means, too, that any third party could post defamatory statements on those Internet presences and get off scott free.
This is an inconsistency that needs to be fixed. And that inconsistency is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.@@http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act@@
Section 230 states that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Internet publishers (i.e., ISPs, forums, blogs, listservs, etc.) and media with online presences fall into this category.
And states are unable to do anything about this, as the section further states, “No cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.”
Section 230 gives an incredible amount of protection to Internet publishers — too much — that needs to be curtailed. The amount of damage that can be caused to people is equally incredible. There are innumerable stories of people, their families, businesses, organizations, etc. that have been laid to ruin because of the immunity granted from Section 230.
This section needs to be eliminated, making sure the any “interactive computer service” is held just as responsible for their third-party content as those medium of communication are for content they themselves publish from the outside (e.g., a letter to the editor) — online or otherwise. And while these services — most especially bloggers — may want us to trust them, I would feel a whole lot better if Section 230 were erased from the books.
A lot of comments for Internet publishers to sift through, perhaps, but I see that as a responsibility that comes with “hosting” people’s comments on matters — whether in the real or Internet world, or by a blogger or any “medium of communication.”