Legislator behind newspaper tax break blasts blogs

House majority leader Lynn Kessler, the state legislator here in Washington who sponsored a bill that gives newspapers a 40% tax break, explains to TechFlash why the bill doesn’t apply to online-only news sites: “Anybody who’s blogging, God love ‘em, they can say and do whatever they want, because they have no liability or responsibility for what they say, because they are not held to any standard, and they shouldn’t be — they’re just individuals editorializing, if you will.”

If Rep. Kessler had bothered to research the subject, she’d know that the largest online news startups in Seattle — WestSeattleBlog.com, CapitolHillSeattle.com and my own MyBallard.com — are run by longtime journalists with national-level experience. She’d know we’ve won community service awards from the city of Seattle for our coverage. She’d know that our sites are being watched around the country as promising contenders for a new model of news. But apparently, we’re just “editorializing” with “no liability or responsibility” for what we say.

I’m absolutely stunned by this. What’s worrisome for me is Rep. Kessler is now implicitly deciding who’s a qualified journalist and what’s a viable news organization. Beyond tax breaks, will this definition extend to other bills, like sunshine laws and public information? Will the state government create two tiers of journalists, one with larger rights than the other?

Her office will be hearing from us.