In her "Writes like she Talks" Blog, Jill Miller Zimon writes about proposed federal legislation that provides "shield" protections to journalists and whether bloggers would or would not be included.
These "shield" protections deal with privileges afforded to journalists protecting them from having to divulge their resources, among other things.
As the post points out, however, the crucial question is in how to define who a journalist is, for purposes of the law.
For example, would ExpertPreneur bloggers be included if journalism was not their main line of work?
Since an underlying concern of defining who is included as a journalist deals with comfort that they are abiding by professional ethics and codes of conduct otherwise followed by more mainstream journalists, the answer, as yet, is not clear.
The proposed bill is not the first stab at this subject, but it is the latest, dealing with federal cases.
Prior versions sought to impose "financial gain" and "source of livelihood" requirements in order to be considered a journalist but that language is not yet in the current proposal.
The issue of journalist privilege for bloggers is just one of many shakeups in legal theory made necessary by the increasing prevalence and influence of blogs in today's World.
As an example of what rights and responsibilities ExpertPreneur bloggers may find themselves affected by, this legislation bears watching.