Thursday, August 25, 2005

CHAIRMAN THOMAS: ...And one issue that's come out is, you know, what about the hypothetical, I guess it is, it's sort of based on what happened in the South Dakota Senate race, but what about the hypothetical where you're starting to see bloggers being paid by candidates to basically put up friendly commentary? ...

MR. BOULET: ... [T]o my mind, there are some days when I read the Washington Post, and I think it should have a disclaimer "paid for by the Democratic Party." And, you know, others would look at the Washington Times and say there should be a disclaimer on that, too. ...

I just really think that the South Dakota thing, the press will take care of that in any election: any Website, any blog that becomes rah-rah one guy, they'll be looking into it. ...

COMMISSIONER SMITH: I wrote it down in my notes, but in any case--on the disclaimer issue, Mr. Boulet, you said nobody pays you anyway, no campaign pays you, but if some campaign were giving money to English First, right, and you went on CNN or C-SPAN or MSNBC, you wouldn't have to have a disclaimer that, oh, by the way, I'm paid by the campaign, would you?

MR. BOULET: Not that I'm aware of.

COMMISSIONER SMITH: That's not my understanding of the law, either. So to require a blogger to put that kind of disclaimer on would actually be an expansion of the law to bloggers that doesn't apply to other people who are using the press. ...

MR. BOULET: We want to break for lunch, but could I make Commissioner Weintraub feel a little better? ...

I['ve] found that when I talk to a real journalist about a story I participate[d] in, I can go through the article and play "count the mistakes." Yet when I read a story about you, I know every word of it must be true so--

[Laughter.]

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: I've had the same experience.

MR. BOULET: And this is where the Internet and the blogs are so useful as a corrective for that sort of thing.

It's always been clear – or has it? – who's a reporter and what’s a story. But the recent debate over extending the press exemption that exists in current campaign finance law to bloggers and other Internet journalists has hit squarely on a touchy issue: fairness. ...

Those questions were at the heart of testimony by bloggers before the Federal Elections Commission last month. But Washington, D.C. isn't the only place this question is being asked. Recently, a Washington state judge ruled that two radio talk show hosts who supported a state initiative and had allegedly been working with pro-initiative interests, along with the station employing them, must report their support of the initiative as in-kind contributions. The state court’s pronouncement left many wondering about the line between commenting on an issue and "participating" in a campaign.

The lines are getting pretty blurry. The thinking person has to ask: Are we placing a little too much faith in government regulation when it comes to protecting citizens from bias and opinion in political discourse?