Bloggers deserve access and protection

In 2008, Lake Oswego, Oregon drafted a policy narrowly defining media members as those at outlets with multiple personnel and registration with the state Corporation Division. The policy clearly excludes bloggers, which have been regularly disrespected.

Yet, the disrespect for bloggers in Lake Oswego might extend to professional journalists themselves. Tim Knight wrote a blog going to great lengths to separate journalists from what he calls "citizen bloggers."

"Journalists are different from other people. We're trained to report on all sides without fear or favour. We're trained to serve the people, not the powers that be -- which includes governments and our unions and our political beliefs and the nice people who sign our cheques."

Knight might be right that bloggers don't always hold themselves to as high of standards as other professional news outlets, but that doesn't mean they have a right to cover the news with the same constitutional protections. 

These constitutional protections were affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court in 2014.  Giving bloggers and journalists the same level of protections. 

With an increasing number of people choosing to get their news from blogs, bloggers must be respected and afforded the same opportunities to create content as professional journalists. 

Progressive press reinvigorated by political miscues

Vincent Stehle's blog outlining how the U.S. invasion of Iraq led to the "reinvigoration of the progressive press" demonstrates how strong the press's reaction to political mishaps can be.

The progressive press has become increasingly influential, according to Stehle, since the early 2000s. He highlights the efforts of Mother Jones' David Corn in uncovering the video in which Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said 47 percent of Americans pay no income tax and are dependent on the government. This is a fair example of the power of the nonprofit press in quite possibly swaying an election.

Jump to 2016 and its important to look at how the independent press is now looked at by the American public. After the election of Donald Trump, the media came under fire for its role in the election. The BBC wrote "Donald Trump: How the media created the president," and a number of other news outlets highlighted the failures of the U.S. mainstream press during the 2016 election.

Despite that fact, key mainstream news outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post have seen their subscriptions sky rocket in the aftermath of the election.

Independent media outlets have also been received an uptick in subscriptions as The Washington Post reported. It seems as though similar to how the war in Iraq aided the rise of progressive media outlets in the early 2000s, the election of Trump may cause for a rise in independent media outlets in 2016.