VivirLatino

We get a lot of comments on this blog when people don’t like what we write, saying that “real journalists” would try harder to show both sides, check facts more diligently, not be biased, be more objective, etc. etc. I chuckle when I read these comments because neither Maegan or myself think we are traditional “journalists” and we don’t pretend to objective either.

We are a lot of other things, among them blogger, writer, artist, business people, parent, activist and a host of other words can describe us. We’re not journalists in the traditional sense. We are regular people who care enough about something (Latino issues) to post about it every day, and state our opinions. BUT, we are in fact the media. Right?

If a controversy that has unfolded right here in San Francisco is to be a case study on that statement, the government probably doesn’t share that sentiment. Today San Francisco blogger Josh Wolf becomes the journalist (there’s that word again) who has spent the most time in prison for refusing to hand over information to the U.S. Government. While his friends and family held a press conference at our City Hall this afternoon to rally support for his release, Josh sat in a Federal prison in Dublin, California, all because the government doesn’t buy that he deserves the journalist’s right to withhold information.

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