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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
If bloggers get the same press freedoms as traditional media, what will prevent corporations like Halliburton from using blogs to pour unregulated money into politics?
Jul 9, 2005 | During the 2004 Democratic primaries, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, who runs the Daily Kos blog, was criticized by a reporter at the Columbia Journalism Review (full disclosure: It was me) for an apparent breach of journalistic ethics. Kos had posted the results of exit surveys before polls had closed, potentially affecting the integrity of the vote. In response, Kos argued that, as a blogger, he wasn't bound by conventional notions of journalistic propriety: "We're activists," he wrote of himself and his fellow political bloggers. "Not reporters. Not talking heads. Not journalists. But activists. The difference is stark."
Fast-forward to late last month, when the Federal Election Commission held hearings to help determine whether political blogs should enjoy a "freedom of the press" exemption from campaign finance regulations, as more traditional media outlets do. The commission, composed of three Republicans and three Democrats, had voted in 2002 to exempt the Internet from the recently passed McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation, but a district court judge had ruled the exemption too broad and ordered the commission to draw up new rules. If bloggers were unable to convince the commissioners that their sites represented legitimate media outlets, they could face restrictions under McCain-Feingold on their ability to advocate on behalf of campaigns, to post and distribute candidates' messages, and to perform the range of activities that helped give them a significant voice in political circles, especially Democratic ones, during the 2004 cycle.
This time, Kos was understandably eager to claim the mantle of journalism. In written comments to the FEC, he and two other bloggers asserted: "At their best, bloggers are true journalists, contacting sources, researching facts and raising public awareness of vital issues. Even at their 'worst,' bloggers perform the same function as talk radio hosts or opinion journalists in the print and televised media, energizing partisan supporters through humor, vitriol and innuendo."
Kos' evolving self-definition is a symptom of the precarious position in which political blogs now find themselves, as the federal government begins to scrutinize their burgeoning influence on politics. Many bloggers on both the left and right achieved popularity in part by highlighting the shortcomings of the mainstream media, and by emphasizing their opposition to it. Now, amid concern that failing to be defined as a legitimate media outlet could open the door to government regulation, some bloggers have been trying -- sometimes ironically -- to erase the very distinction that Kos flaunted last year. But in response, some good-government advocates worry that, in arguing for as broad a definition of media -- and therefore as broad an exemption -- as possible, bloggers may inadvertently be undermining crucial campaign finance laws, creating a loophole that could allow corporations to use the Internet to channel unlimited amounts of money into electoral politics.
Recently, a blogger who runs the Talent Show site -- incensed by the possibility that bloggers might be denied the media exemption enjoyed by talk-show hosts like Michael Savage or online magazines like Salon -- declared: "In order to avoid any potential pitfalls, let me use this opportunity to announce that this post will be the last one on The Talent Show blog. Starting either late today or tomorrow, I will relaunch (without any fanfare whatsoever) my new web magazine, The Talent Show ... The look of the site, the writing style, the subject matter, the content, and the technological back end will be identical to what I'm using now, but the change (as least as far as the FEC is concerned) will be drastic." Atrios quickly picked up the theme: His site now bears a prominent -- and semi-mocking -- tagline, identifying it as "An Online Magazine of News, Commentary, and Editorial."
The concern that the federal government could prevent ordinary bloggers from pursuing their passion has provided a perfect opportunity for righteous Internet indignation, but it's almost certainly groundless. For starters, campaign finance laws allow for a "volunteer exemption": The amount of money an individual spends on his or her own volunteer activity is not counted as a contribution to a campaign. For bloggers, that can be argued to include the cost of computers, Internet-service providers and software. Even assuming a stricter volunteer standard, there appears to be little enthusiasm among the commissioners for cracking down on ordinary bloggers, and it's highly likely that the new rules will explicitly protect the vast majority of political sites. "People like Red State [a prominent conservative blog] or Kos clearly fall under the media exemption," Democratic FEC commissioner Ellen Weintraub, seen by some observers as the potential swing vote, told Salon. "Practically all bloggers -- I can't think of one who wouldn't -- would fall under the media exemption or the volunteer. And that's if we do nothing, if we don't change the rules at all."
To progressives, it may seem reassuring that Kos, Atrios and the rest look likely to be able to continue to blog away unmolested by the feds -- even if it means allowing the other side their Red State and InstaPundit. But many good-government advocates -- some of whom have been key supporters of campaign finance laws intended to reduce the influence of money in politics -- worry that by granting a broad exemption to anyone who posts their thoughts on the Internet, the FEC could be creating a loophole that corporations might seek to exploit, allowing them to use blogs as a means of pouring money into electoral politics.
