Who's a Journalist?

Yesterday a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously ruled that Matthew Cooper of Time and Judith Miller of The New York Times should be held in contempt of court for refusing to say who told them Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. While I don't think Cooper and Miller should go to jail, I'm also troubled by the idea of an exemption from grand jury testimony that extends only to government-certified journalists. "Does the privilege also protect the proprietor of a Web log?" asked Judge David Sentelle, referring to "the stereotypical 'blogger' sitting in his pajamas at his personal computer posting on the World Wide Web his best product to inform whoever happens to browse his way." It's hard to see by what principle a blogger in Cooper and Miller's situation should go to jail if they shouldn't, unless courts are going to make case-by-case determinations of who counts as a real journalist, based on criteria such as training, methods, hours worked, money earned, and audience size. It seems strange to protect freedom of the press by putting the government in the position of deciding who is part of the press.