UN-Truth

The UN, which is an Organization anxious to control the flow of news and views about its activities and image, has tried to come up with a definition — through the services of its Department for Public Information, which immediately seized upon the notion that a journalist has to be someone with an editor to provide “supervision”. See our previous post on 30 August here.

Now, the U.S. Senate is trying to come up with its own definition. The Judiciary Committee has passed a bill known as the “Reporter’s Shield Law”.

The Washington Post’s Walter Pincus writes today that “The Senate committee bill employs a broad definition: A ‘covered person’ is someone ‘engaged in journalism’, which itself is defined as ‘the regular gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public’. That would cover those working for major news organizations as well as individuals putting out their own blogs or newsletters…

The Washington Post story continues: “What the Senate bill also includes, though, is a list of who is not a covered person. Here the committee tried to block anyone associated with terrorism from claiming to be a ‘covered person’, having in mind criticism of the bill made in a Washington Post op-ed last week by U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame case. Fitzgerald suggested that ‘charity’ groups that raise money for terrorists, Iraqi spies working under journalist cover, or criminal gangs running a radio station all could qualify. The committee decided that the bill would not cover anyone who is ‘an agent of a foreign power’ as newly defined in recent amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Committee staff members said this could include journalists working for the news network al-Jazeera, owned by the government of Qatar; publications run by Hezbollah, the Lebanese political party; and even the BBC or other news organizations owned by governments. The new FISA definitions also include as agents of a foreign power anyone who ‘is reasonably expected to possess, control, transmit or receive foreign intelligence information while such person is in the United States’. The bill also would not cover anyone who, because of past actions, is excluded from participating in federal grants, aid, or procurement or nonprocurement activities. The bill would not exempt from federal subpoena or civil court subpoena a “covered person” who personally witnessed an alleged crime, nor would it permit the holding back of physical evidence or film, tape or audio recordings of such an alleged criminal event…”
Walter Pincus’ account of the U.S. Senate attempt to define Who is a Journalist is here.

Filed under: Journalism and Journalists