You posed an interesting question on your blog about whether or not bloggers are covered under the “press association” rubric of the Ohio shield law.

The short answer is: we don’t know because the courts have not ruled on this question. But, and I offer this after having e-mailed with Kenneth Zirm, a local First Amendment attorney with Walter Haverfield who has offered to help SPJ in some of these issues, there’s plenty of reason to believe the courts today will more likely interpret the law narrowly rather than broadly.

This is no substitute for legal advice, but it is likely that the case would focus on whether or not the blogger is “gathering, procuring, compiling, editing, disseminating or publishing news”. No doubt arguments can be made on both sides of that question, especially since, according to Zirm, there is no legally accepted definition of what “news” is.

If tested, the shield law applying to bloggers would likely be an uphill battle, unless they can demonstrate the source they are trying to protect was someone they received information from in connection with a “news” story.

Zirm offers this case citation Svoboda v. Clear Channel Communications where the 6th district court of appeals: “parses the language of the shield law and refuses to apply it to a radio news director trying to protect the source of a gossip item reported by the morning drive time team. It’s one of the few court decisions I know of that attempts to define some of the specific terms used in the shield law, and does so in a way that is hardly comforting for journalists. (It should be available on the Ohio Supreme Court’s website for free using the citation 2004-Ohio-894).”

I’ve also attached a PDF of that case here. Anyway I hope that helps or at least spurs on the discussion.