My former colleague Garrett wrote yesterday on the EchoDitto blog about how he thinks "bloggers" should be accorded the same legal rights as "journalists."

The whole world, from media organizations to corporations to the courts, is trying to figure out how to handle those "special" bloggers. Are they journalists? Do they deserve the slim but critical protections that journalists legally receive?

My entrance to the White House earlier this month, and the White House's inherent decision that bloggers could be journalists, became intertwined with the "Apple blogger case" in California, where a few days earlier a judge had denied journalistic protections to bloggers who had broken news about forthcoming Apple products. The judge, in essence, ruled that those bloggers weren't journalists. Now I've been following that case rather closely not just because of the journalism implications but also because one of the bloggers involved, Nicholas M. Ciarelli, is a student at my alma mater and so the Crimson (where I spent far too many hours in college) has been covering it extensively.

I think he's inadvertantly perpetuating the myth that journalists have all these extra rights. I said as much in a comment to his post and figured I'd repeat it here:

The judge in the Apple case actually made no determination whether Nick dePlume or any other blogger deserved the same rights as journalists. Even if he had, it's unclear whether "journalists" actually have any extra First Amendment rights. Remember - folks are going to jail becuase they refuse to name their sources in the Valerie Plame case.

In the Apple case, the judge was pretty clear that even identified "journalists" are covered by California's "trade secrets" law. Daring Fireball has some pretty cogent analysis and he quotes the actual decision:

These statutes reflect this state’s strong commitment to the protection of proprietary business information. See Integral Dev. Corp. v. Weissenbach (2002) 99 Cal. App. 4th 576, Magnecomp Corp. v. Athene Co. (1989) 209 Cal. App. 3d 526. The statutes also support the compelling interest of disclosure which may, in the proper civil case, outweigh First Amendment rights. As discussed infra, the United States and California Supreme Courts have underscored that trade secret laws apply to everyone regardless of their status, title or chosen profession. The California Legislature has not carved out any exception to these statutes for journalists, bloggers or anyone else. (Emphasis added.)

So, it doesn't matter whether you're a journo or not. You still have to follow the law. The real question is whether or not there really are any actual "journalist rights." If there are, I think one has to ask where they come from. Last time I checked, the Constitution didn't identify any other rights that are only held by folks in certain professions. If a right exists, it exists in all of us.