Senators Diane Feinstein and Dick Durbin are attempting to narrow the definition of a journalist in the federal shield law under consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning. Their amendment would limit protection from testifying to professional journalists working for “a newspaper, book, magazine, or other periodical.” Not included: student journalists, amateur bloggers, or [...]

Thanks to the American Society of News Editors, we can now read the compromise shield law hashed out last week by the White House, news-industry lobbyists, and the Senate Judiciary Committee. There are plenty of moving parts here, but I’ve been focused on the law’s definition of a journalist, as have others. The compromise takes [...]

Last week, as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepared to vote on a federal shield law, I wrote about the competing definitions of a journalist in the House and Senate versions of the bill. Well, I have bad news on two fronts: The Judiciary Committee didn’t vote on the shield law, but it did adopt an [...]

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on a federal shield law today that would protect journalists from subpoenas for their confidential sources — that is, if legislators can agree on who counts as a journalist.
A version of the shield law already passed by the House (H.R. 985) casts the issue largely in [...]