Canadian Bloggers Get Some Legitimacy

A new Canadian ruling, in late December, has made steps toward clarifying the legal status of blogging amid other forms of news media, affording bloggers some legal protection but also increasing their responsibility to verify sources. (CBC News, Toronto.)

While the focus of this second article, from the Chronicle Herald in Halifax, is on the future of traditional journalism, and the threats against it, I found it interesting for its Canadian point of view -- the bit about Stephen Harper's attempted control of media seemed refreshingly precious to my jaded American sensibility. But it's great that in Canada we think we still have some control over how this goes - and, as in many discussions of public policy, we actually may.

JUST AS a pretty dark year was ending for journalism, the sun broke through over the Supreme Court last week, shining a light that will illuminate free speech in Canada for generations to come. In two key rulings, the court established a new defence against libel and defamation: the defence of responsible journalism. With that, media organizations as large as TV networks and as small as one-person blogs can defend themselves against defamation if they can prove that, among other things, they acted in the public interest.

And while we're talking about Canadian bloggers, congratulations to my friend Ed, whose BlorkBlog turns 9 today. Ed was not only a pioneer in the early days of blogging, he's kept it going all this time - but might be shutting down to put his energy into other projects. You can go over there and vote in a poll he's taking about his blog's future.

Comments

[ej]

If you are interested in blogging and rights take a look at http://boingboing.net.

There are often very interesting discussions on copyright issues etc.

[blork]

Beth, thanks for the plug. :-) And thanks for the links to those articles. I've always felt that bloggers should aspire to be fair and to borrow certain things from journalism (such as fact checking) if they want to be taken seriously. But it's tough with blogs, because bloggers are not beholden to any standard. It's an unregulatable medium.

On the other hand, blogging is publishing and that's a distinction that a lot of fly-by-nighters don't really get. They see their blogs as nothing more than graffiti on a wall, or chit-chat in a noisy bar. But once it's on the web it is published and I think there is a certain responsibility that goes with that. At least if you want your blog to be taken seriously and to build a reputation for being fair and reliable.