Judge Clarifies That Bloggers Can Be Journalists (Just Not One in Particular)

NYT reporting:
Back in December, United States District Court Judge Marco A. Hernandez created a stir by seeming to suggest that bloggers are not journalists as defined by Oregon’s shield law. The ruling came in a case involving a self-described “investigative blogger,” Crystal L. Cox. She had been sued by Kevin Padrick of the Obsidian Finance Group for defamation because she had written that he and his company had engaged in a wholesale fraud in a bankruptcy case.
Initially, the blogosphere sounded the alarm at what seemed to be an attack by powerful moneyed interests on a crusading blogger. But a cursory investigation revealed that Ms. Cox employed a number of unorthodox tactics for a journalist, including registering dozens of domain names of people she perceived as her enemies in order to initiate serial and often profane salvos against them. In the instance of Mr. Padrick, she sent his lawyer an e-mail offering reputation management services after savaging his client in several blogs...
In his ruling denying the motion for a new trial, the judge said that he never intended to suggest that bloggers can’t be journalists, only that Ms. Cox did not fit the definition:
“In my discussion, I did not state that a person who ‘blogs’ could never be considered ‘media.’ I also did not state that to be considered ‘media,’ one had to possess all or most of the characteristics I recited.”...
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/judge-clarifies-that-bloggers-can-be-journalists-just-not-one-in-particular/?nl=business&emc=edit_at_20120402