FEC and Blogs

Two blog posts, seemingly unrelated, made their way into my aggregator this morning.

The first was a post by K.G. Schneider over at Free Range Librarian in which she talks about a book project she is currently working on about the military. One of the proposed chapters would be about the unique dialog that comes from the branches of the military. She says, This may not be printable anywhere, let alone a book [afterthought: though maybe a blog]

It is a good idea, using a blog to write stuff that may be questionable, but then I found this post over at Crooked Timber, which is an interdisciplinary blog about academia. Given all the stuff going on with politics and blogs, the FEC wants to regulate how blogs and the internet are used in campaigns. While this sounds like it might be good in theory, it really comes down to censorship. Why should a newspaper be covered under the First Amendment and not a blog? Shouldn’t they both be covered by free speech? Would it make a difference if the blogger was paid by a candidate? Where does the line in the sand get drawn?

Just another issue to think about regarding blogs, journalism, and how we perceive the information therein.

–Jane, just finished lunch over a %$#*!#* good book