Tuesday - September 04, 2007

Congrats

It won’t happen often, but in this case, it is a clear win for all of us.

Bloggers Win Before the FEC

Ah, summer, the time for daydreams, like when BlogCritics.org’s John Bambenek believed he could haul DailyKos before the Federal Election Commission and have a hearing where he’d prove that we were violating the law by failing to register as a political committee.

Vacation’s over, and the FEC has unanimously determined that DailyKos qualifies as a media entity under federal law, and thus none of the site’s expenditures count under federal law for determining whether a political committee was formed.  Just like a newspaper isn’t charged with making a campaign contribution by editorializing on behalf of a candidate, neither is this site:

Kos Media qualifies as a media entity in its function of operating DailyKos. DailyKos is available to the general public and is the online equivalent of a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication as described in the Act and Commission regulations. Additionally, DailyKos is precisely the type of online media presence the Commission contemplated when revising the media exemption provided in 11 C.F.R. §§ 100.73 and 100.132.  An examination of DailyKos and other supporting materials demonstrates that the site’s primary function is to provide news and commentary to millions of viewers through its “blog” entries providing news stories with links to “breaking news,” original political commentary, and calls to action. Like traditional media outlets such as newspapers and magazines, DailyKos has a publisher, Moulitsas, who appears to retain editorial control over the content of the site, and a list of contributing editors, who along with Moulitsas appear to be “front page posters” and draft stories. Further, registered users of DailyKos may post responsive comments, which are similar to letters to the editors in traditional media outlets.

In addition, Kos Media’s creation and distribution of the DailyKos falls within the scope of the exemption. First, the complaint does not allege, nor does publicly available information indicate, that Kos Media is owned or controlled by a political party, committee, or candidate. Second, by creating and distributing the DailyKos, containing news stones with links to “breaking news,” original political commentary and calls to actions akin to editorials, Kos Media is acting within its legitimate press function that qualifies it as a press entity. As such, Kos Media’s creation and distribution of the DailyKos falls within Kos Media’s legitimate press. function. Moreover, Kos Media’s operation of DailyKos is the type of activity contemplated by the Commission during its rulemaking regarding the media exemption....

While the complaint asserts that DailyKos advocates for the election of Democrats to federal office, the Commission has repeatedly stated that an entity that would otherwise qualify for the media exemption does not lose its eligibility because it features news or commentary lacking objectivity or expressly advocates in its editorials the election or defeat of a federal candidate.

Blogging is just as much media as TV, Radio and newsprint.  Hopefully, no other bloggers will have to be dragged into court to prove it again. 

Congrats KOS, you did well in fighting this one.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/04/2007 at 10:06 PM   
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • News-Briefs •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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