On the face of it, a New Jersey court ruling this week is a blow for scribes who ply their trade online. The court said bloggers aren't the same as mainstream journalists and therefore not protected under the state's shield laws.

But there's a silver lining to the ruling.

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that blogger Shellee Hale's criticism of a software company on a porn industry bulletin board was not covered by the state's press shield law, which protects journalists from having to reveal confidential sources.


Online forums "are not the functional equivalent of the types of news media outlets outlined in the Shield Law," the court wrote. "Neither writing a letter to the editor nor posting a comment on an online message board establishes the connection with 'news media' required by the statute."

However, several journalism advocacy groups said the ruling should actually make it easier for people associated with online publications and traditional media to invoke the shield law.

That's because the ruling overturned an appellate court's decision that would have required those seeking the law's protections to show they stick to professional journalistic standards or have credentials from traditional media.

In effect, Tuesday's ruling streamlines the court procedure for obtaining the law's protections.

Bruce Rosen, a New Jersey media lawyer, told the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press that it should now be easier for traditional and online journalists to show a court that the law applies to them.

"If you collect news and it's clear you're connected to a news organization, you'll be fine," Rosen said. "If you're not connected with any news organization and you're venting online, you may not have those protections."

Hale posted allegations online in 2008 that Too Much Media Inc. had profited from a security breach of one of its databases and had threatened people who questioned the company's actions. She said she was working on an article for her website at the time.

The company sued Hale for defamation. That suit was on hold while the shield law case wended its way through the courts.

The bottom line: If you're associated with a news organization, online or otherwise, you should be able to invoke New Jersey's shield law protections, and the process for doing so just got a little easier.

But if you run your own blog or are a self-employed citizen journalist not affiliated with a news outlet, things will be tougher.

"For the general public, it makes it harder for individual bloggers to have automatic protection," Rosen told the RCFP. "They're going to have to pass that test."

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