Kos vs. IPDI: the smackdown
Yesterday, Kos had a couple of posts up that hit a little close to home: criticizing GSPM's own Carol Darr's comments to the FEC on whether bloggers should be regulated as political expenditures under campaign finance laws. You can read her comments (submitted on behalf of IPDA) here, and Kos' comments here, here, and here.
I have to agree with Kos on this one: I can design my own fliers promoting the candidate of my choice, print them up at Kinko's, and stand on the street corner handing them out to passersby without any government regulation--how is that different than having a blog? Payments from campaigns to bloggers must be disclosed in the campaign's quarterly expense reports, just like payments to any other consultant. James Carville and Paul Begala consulted for Kerry while hosting "Crossfire" on CNN. If a blog is run by a campaign, than it should be treated as any other campaign expenditure. But independent bloggers that declare their support for one candidate or another should be treated the same as any private citizen doing the same on the street corner.
There's also an important difference between television and the internet when it comes to regulation: access to television is limited by the amount of broadcast spectrum set aside by the FCC for television, and the monopoly rights that stations hold on that spectrum. The internet, on the other hand, has very low barriers to entry. There is no practical limit on the number of websites that can exist, and starting a page is a low-cost (or free!) task. I can't start my own TV show tomorrow--but I'm a blogger!
2 Comments:
I think Darr's argument is weak, most especially the idea that giving bloggers the freedom from FEC rules to publish political comments like a journalist would erode traditional journalists' source protection.
Where is her evidence? Where are her supporting examples? Already a judge in San Jose, Calif., ruled that bloggers do not have tradtional journalists' source protection.
If I were her, I'd be less concerned about bloggers and more concerned about weasels like Robert Novak who are willing to roll on their sources while other journalists are willing to go to jail to protect them. Behavior like that is a far greater danger.
Having talked to Carol about this (I work at IPDI), I think you are missing the point of her concerns.
Her primary concern is with the effect that giving bloggers the same rights as traditional media would have on campaign finance.
Currently, the media enjoy wide exemptions from campaign finance regulations. If that is extended to bloggers, anyone can say 'I am a blogger', and no longer be subject to campaign finance restrictions.
As such, Carol's concern is that attempts to restrict big money doners from corrupting the process could be eviscerated by creating this loophole.
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