Is Putin a Journalist?
...The bigger problem with the proposed definition is that, like most government regulations, it would give an advantage to established corporate players over challengers. That is to say, it would create a barrier to entry. Whereas a newspaper or TV reporter's promises of confidentiality would be backed by the authority of the federal government, those of an upstart blogger or pamphleteer would not.

Professional journalists affiliated with major media corporations already have an advantage in this regard: A source who talks to one of us knows that our promises of confidentiality will be backed by the institution, including its legal department if necessary. But the pros have an incentive to side with an amateur who ends up in a conflict with the government, for any precedent set in such a dispute would apply to us as well.

Just as the McCain-Feingold "media exemption" left news organizations without an incentive to defend free speech, a shield law would change the incentives so that professional journalists would have every reason to let amateur ones hang out to dry....

There Ought To Be No Law
...As I’ve written elsewhere, under the guise of “protection,” the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party is moving toward its real goal of licensing journalists and creating an American version of Britain’s Official Secrets Act. The Senate bill has nothing to do with protecting journalists, and everything to do with the Government Class protecting itself from those who would expose its activities. Having successfully co-opted what used to be the national media — so much so that there is now a veritable revolving door between Washington and old-media institutions — Congress now seeks to shut down via exclusion all those who do not toe the party line. ...

...The weasel word is, of course, “legitimate,” so that would leave out Tom Paine and the other illegitimate rabble-rousers who fomented the American Revolution. But it doesn’t matter whether Feinstein wants to “go there” — the Framers have already been and gone; as the feminists like to say, “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” A federal license, no matter what its guise, is simply a license to smooch, and any journalist who would trust Chuck Schumer’s good intentions shouldn’t be allowed to cover the local sewer board meeting. ...

Richard Stengel leaving Time for State Department
Richard Stengel, the top editor of Time magazine for the past seven years, is planning to step down as managing editor for a new job at the U.S. Department of State, sources familiar with the situation tell POLITICO and Capital New York.

If confirmed, Stengel will serve as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, the role responsible for leading “America’s public diplomacy outreach, which includes communications with international audiences, cultural programming, academic grants, educational exchanges, international visitor programs, and U.S. Government efforts to confront ideological support for terrorism,” according to the State Department’s website....

Rick Stengel Is at Least the 21st Journalist to Work for the Obama Administration
...A wave of reporters went to work for President Obama early in the administration, a time when many media organizations were going through layoffs and Obama's approval rating was sky-high. The flow has tapered off since then. The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe has semi-regularly kept tabs on the number of reporters working for Obama administration, counting 10 in May 2009, 14 in 2010, and 13 in 2011. The Washington Examiner's Paul Beddard counted 19 reporters working for "Team Obama" in February 2012, but he included liberal advocacy groups as part of the "team." ...

Incestuous news: Did CBS' Rhodes push brother Ben's Benghazi video excuse?
Did White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, use his brother's position as president of CBS News to push the false “it was the video” excuse within hours of the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi?

It would certainly explain how barely six hours after the second attack had ended that the CBSnews.com website had a story placing blame for the Cairo embassy demonstration and Benghazi attack...