How Dangerous is this? When Old Cranks of the Senate Panel OKs Measure Defining a Journalist

These are the least qualified to determine who should be called journalist. Journalist, as term, has taken on a pejorative meaning recently, as most tend to be rather stupid, lazy, of the same left leaning politics and graduates from schools that turned them into lemmings. Now the worst elements of the Senate, represented by "models for free press", when it suits them, Schumer, Durbin and Feinstein,  who want to somehow codify the press into an ill-defined propaganda tool that will be more favorable to their inanity and prevent independent and more honest reporting from gaining access to government. Goebbels would be proud. m/r

Senate Panel OKs Measure Defining a Journalist

(AP) Senate panel Oks measure defining a journalist
By DONNA CASSATA    - Fri 13, Sept. 2013 excerpted
Associated PressWASHINGTON
A Senate panel on Thursday approved a measure defining a journalist, which had been an obstacle to broader media shield legislation designed to protect reporters and the news media from having to reveal their sources. ...

The vote was 13-5 for a compromise defining a "covered journalist" as an employee, independent contractor or agent of an entity that disseminates news or information. The individual would have been employed for one year within the last 20 or three months within the last five years.

It would apply to student journalists or someone with a considerable amount of freelance work in the last five years. A federal judge also would have the discretion to declare an individual a "covered journalist," who would be granted the privileges of the law.

The committee later approved the overall bill on a 13-5 vote.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a chief proponent of the medial shield legislation, worked with Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., as well as representatives from news organizations, on the compromise.
...

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., complained that the definition of a journalist was too broad. Pushing back, Feinstein said the intent was to set up a test to determine a bona fide journalist.

"I think journalism has a certain tradecraft. It's a profession. I recognize that everyone can think they're a journalist," Feinstein said.

The overall measure would incorporate many of the changes proposed by Attorney General Eric Holder in July. Criticism of the collection of the material without any notice to the news organizations prompted President Barack Obama to order Holder to review the department's policy.

- See more at: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/09/12/Senate-panel-Oks-measure-defining-a-journalist#sthash.Xg7DkqoP.dpuf