For those who blog: new media is not news media

A New Jersey court ruled this week that a blogger is not covered by N.J. shield laws.
According to N.J.com her writing  “amounted to nothing more than a letter-to-the-editor in a newspaper”.  She argued when she made a defamatory post in a forum she was “acting as a journalist”.   The judge’s response was “was not a member of the news media because she was not affiliated with a media organization and had not performed roles of a journalist, such as fact-checking”.
So just because you write does not make you a journalist. Any more than putting a band-aid on a skinned knee makes you a doctor. So take care with what you write online.  Libel laws exist in that new media as well …