Tip to Bloggers: Keep It Real

When you write a column and immediately become the target of numerous bloggers, you suspect you're onto something.

When bloggers resort to personal attacks and distortions, you know you are.

Last week, I wrote a column calling for a change in the federal Copyright Act as a way to save newspapers from online pilfering of their work. I support a proposal based on the research of First Amendment lawyer David Marburger and his brother Daniel Marburger, an economics professor.

Leading the rebuttal for the online community was Jeff Jarvis, a former print reporter and editor who has made a second career out of championing the demise of traditional journalism and the people who practice it.

In his blog, "BuzzMachine," Jarvis began by dwelling on my marriage to U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. He apparently thought this was breaking news.

As I explained in a response on his blog, my marriage is no secret. The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, where I work, discloses it at the end of every column I write about politics. I often mention it in television interviews and speeches. I also wrote an entire book about Sherrod's 2006 Senate race, titled "... and His Lovely Wife." I suggest Jarvis read the introduction to the paperback edition for an explanation of the impact of marriage on my ability to think for myself. Might rock his world.

Jarvis said I should register as a lobbyist because I am appealing for a change in federal law. The logical extension of Jarvis' argument would mean that a long list of columnists and editorial writers would have to register as lobbyists, too. They have the same pesky habit of pressing Congress to do their versions of the right thing.

Jarvis would have to register as a lobbyist, too, because his arguing against changing copyright law is an attempt to tell Congress to just let that mangy dog lie.

To answer Jarvis' online query: My husband will not help draft any legislation intended to help the newspaper industry. He also will recuse himself from voting on any such legislation.

Jarvis called David Marburger an "alleged First Amendment attorney." Had Jarvis utilized basic reporting skills of the journalists he loves to deride, he would have discovered that Marburger has represented news organizations — including The Plain Dealer — on First Amendment issues for nearly three decades.

And the Marburgers developed this proposal on their own time, after 400 hours of research.

The Marburgers propose a change in the federal Copyright Act to allow newspapers to sue aggregators who profit unfairly from the work of newspapers.

Some bloggers misrepresented key parts of the Marburger proposal. This is not an attempt to monopolize facts. This is about giving news organizations the right to recoup their investments of time, energy and resources and to sue Web aggregators who post such significant rewrites or summaries that readers to their sites lose any interest in reading the original stories.

I suggested a 24-hour window of time in which originators' news stories could be posted on only their Web sites. This time frame would not be written into statute, but ideally would evolve as common law, through judicial rulings.

Some repeatedly claim that the Marburger proposal bans all links to stories. Not true. Please read the proposal or my column. Both are posted on Creators Syndicate's Web site, http://www.creators.com, and make clear there is no objection to sites like Google News, which offers a headline and a link that drives readers back to the original story.

This is not a drive to destroy the First Amendment, but rather an attempt to preserve it. Bolstering copyright allows news organizations to still invest in the hard work of real journalism, which holds public officials accountable and amplifies the voices of those who deserve to be heard.

Name-calling and distortions always will be part of the blogosphere, but it's no way to gain traction in this vital debate. I thank those who've weighed in with thoughtful responses, even when they don't agree.

Civil discourse may bring solutions.

Everything else is just noise.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "... and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.

Download a PDF of the Marburger proposal. The table of contents is also available.