The Freedom of the Press is Guaranteed to Those who Strive for One

First, I want to say I’m not entirely unsympathetic when you say that you are “trying to preserve and protect [a certain] set of [journalistic] practices.” I do, in fact, have at least some appreciation for the journalistic values you espouse, but I simply do not believe that the First Amendment should be the mechanism you shanghai to protect them. When you note that “[t]here is different information and different analysis that emerges when I go in search of information as a reporter than when I do so as a citizen-blogger,” you miss the point--- the law has literally no relation to the personal difference you experience when you work as a “blogger” or a “reporter.” This is what Ted is pointing out when he notes that there is no “legal responsibility to balance the legal privileges given to the press under US law.” You may say there is a difference between being a reporter and being a blogger, and perhaps there is, but this is a norm that can and should be enforced either informally, via social systems and pressures, or formally through journalistic education which indoctrinates such values in its students. You might also enforce this as Ted also notes through other means, like the distribution of press passes. The Bill of Rights, on the other hand, is decidedly unsuited to create and enforce a system that is “inherently unequal.”