Utter genius: BillHobbs.com – Grassroots journalism from Nashville..
The management of this blog announces that I am ceasing publication of this blog after today. In light of recent and continuing moves by the Federal Election Commission to regulate blogs that cover politics, while allowing media publications a media exemption from such regulations, I have decided that it is time to cease publication of this blog after more than three years of blogging.
Starting tomorrow, I will publish a new online magazine here at this same web address, www.billhobbs.com.
A creative solution to yet another restriction of the freedom of speech. As of yet, I have no plans to become an ‘online magazine’, but I don’t spend much time on politics, either.
Actually there might be another reason for an “Online Magazine,” but that reason could be equally inapplicable.
A recent bill in the Texas senate would have created a “privilege” for a “journalist.” I believe it was not signed into law, but there’s always a chance it will come up again in the next regular session.
There was a specific definition of a “journalist” in the bill, and whether a blogger would have been included in that definition would have been something a court would have had to decide. Who knows, calling a blog an online magazine might be the deciding factor.
Most bloggers might never need a journalist’s privilege. But, if the journalists get it, then let’s have it for bloggers, too.