The House recently passed a bill, HR 2102, which would create a reporter’s privilege, and a companion bill in the Senate has been reported out of committee, S. 2035. However, the President has indicated he would veto the bill.

Before the House voted on the bill, Josh Wolf spotted some changes from earlier language. He notes:

When the bill was first introduced in May, it was not without its weaknesses, but it’s [sic] broad definition of who was covered under the bill and its limited exceptions made for a robust bill that I could easily support.

By August the bill had been amended to refine who would and wouldn’t qualify as a journalist. The new language stated that only those who who derive “financial gain or livelihood” from their journalistic activity would be covered. Journalism students would no longer be covered, nor would many bloggers. [...]

Since then, two more amendments have been introduced that will further erode the bill. One introduced by Representative Boucher (VA) and Pence (IN) (sponsors of the original bill) adds that the journalist must depend on his craft for a “substantial portion of the person’s livelihood or for substantial financial gain” [emphasis by Josh].

I was struck by a comment on the article:

I noticed in the Washington Post article that the large newspaper conglomerates all support the bill with the amendment. Mmm?

My inner political scientist awoke. Here was James Q. Wilson’s theory on diffuse vs. concentrated benefits: the relatively few and concentrated commercial journalism operations were effectively defending their interest; the many and diffuse bloggers and students were not. And Mancur Olson’s logic of collective action: the relatively small, homogeneous, tight-knight community of large journalism organizations could effectively mobilize — it was even potentially a privileged group, where it would be rational for one actor to expend resources to pursue the good even if no others followed suit. The larger, more heterogeneous, more disconnected group of amateur journalists could not effectively mobilize.