Just when bloggers were starting to get respect

This just in from Lithuania:

Party’s over, folks. The Lithuanian parliament has spoken:

I’m shocked. Some bloggers are not only legitimate journalists, they (we!) are a good deal better at reporting the truth than the mainstream media sometimes.

<"This decision does not allow me to enjoy the rights and protection other journalists are entitled to," Liutauras Ulevicius, author of the www.blogas.lt/liutauras, said. Parliament rejected his application for accreditation, saying he and other bloggers do not meet the legal definition of a journalist. "The Media Law describes a journalist as a person who collects, disseminates and provides information to the media, based on a contract with the media, or who is a member of a journalists' union," parliament's education, science and culture committee said.>

What a dumb decision. Some bloggers are journalists and some bloggers aren’t, and some “journalists” aren’t really journalists either.

So there. 

I don’t know what kind of “rights and protections” old Ulevicius was angling for here, but I do know that bloggers produced some of the best coverage of the Scooter Libby trial and — given the central role of journalists in the case — provided an essential look at the story from the outside. You don’t need a union card to do that.

Lithuania has some sharp and savvy leadership, working hard to modernize and compete and advance on the world stage. But they need to come up to speed on this. Here in America, presidential candidates and mainstream news media corporations are hiring their own bloggers to keep up with the instantaneous flow of information. Anybody eager to go into parliament to report for a blog deserves a chance.

Maybe part of his problem is that “blogas” is the Lithuanian word for “bad”.