“Don’t try to make the bill better.”
That was my advice/plea to a member of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee shortly before it heard my reporter’s shield legislation.
The law should be revised, I soon testified, to protect the 21st Century journalist who does not work fulltime in a newsroom but has a contractual relationship with the news media.
The bill, as I introduced it, would have gone further. It would have included “a self-employed journalist” but that didn’t make it past the pre-public meeting gathering of the Judiciary Committee leadership, despite my best effort.
For the Senate to broaden the bill now would delay its enactment. The House would reject any change.
The self-employed journalist (the pamphleteer when the First Amendment was adopted, the blogger in his pajamas today) will have to wait until next year.
