Remarkable timing, this, given that drdenny and I were just discussing the question of what is a journalist anymore.

A California judge has issued a tentative ruling that Apple Computer can force three blogging sites to divulge their sources, according to reports.In the preliminary ruling, issued Thursday, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge said that the three blogging sites, which had disclosed information about Apple’s upcoming products, did not have the same legal protections that shield journalists, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

I suspect this is merelythe first small skirmish in what will eventually turn out to be a rather large war. By the time we get the term “journalist” properly redefined for the Internet Age, I imagine that a couple hundred years of legal precedent will prove to be more of an impediment to understanding the issue than anything.

It would be fun to see the Supreme Court actually go back to the actual text of the 1st Amendment and consider what freedom of the press actually means, given (as drdenny aptly notes) the punctuation of the clause in which it resides.

Hmmmm.