They're in the White House Press Corp - But Are Bloggers Journalists?

Here's the news connected with my post yesterday...

"A California judge issued a preliminary ruling on Mar. 3 that three bloggers who published leaked information about an unreleased Apple (NasdaqNM:AAPL - News) product must divulge their confidential sources. If the ruling holds, it will set a precedent certain to reverberate through the blogosphere because this means under the law bloggers aren't considered journalists."

"According to court papers, the company [Apple] says the people who run these sites aren't "legitimate members of the press," and therefore it has the right to subpoena information that will reveal which Apple employees are violating their confidentiality agreements. In most cases, journalists are protected under the First Amendment and don't have to reveal their sources."

For more, click here

Watch the media on this ...especially in USA...it's just getting started! The judge will provide the ruling soon....

So, the question is: Is a blogger a journalist?

UPDATE [3/12/05]: And the winner is... Apple!

Just in from NYT:
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg ruled in Apple's favor, saying that reporters who published ``stolen property'' weren't entitled to protections.

What underlies this decision is the publishing of information that at this early stage of the litigation fits squarely within the definition of trade secret, Kleinberg wrote. `The right to keep and maintain proprietary information as such is a right which the California Legislature and courts have long affirmed and which is essential to the future of technology and innovation generally.'

The case has been widely watched in the fast-growing world of Web logs -- or blogs, Web sites that contain articles or diary entries and that recently have propelled stories into the mainstream.