The leader of California's equivalent to Washington's Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) is pushing new regulations that would require bloggers to disclose payments from political campaigns. "The public should know about such a connection in the political arena so they can properly evaluate endorsements," FPPC chair Ann Ravel said.

Yeah. I guess. But why single out political bloggers for a regulation that will surely be used to harass them? And when are folks going to stop insisting that there is this clear and definable distinction between so-called "bloggers" and so-called "journalists"?

I mean, let's say I did some contract work for a candidate or initiative campaign I was covering, and failed to disclose it on Slog. It would be unethical, sure, but under California's proposed new regulations it wouldn't be illegal, because as an employee of a Pulitzer Prize winning news organization, I'm technically a journalist not a blogger. Now let's say I went back to writing at my old blog HorseAss.org, and failed to disclose the payment there. Oops... I just broke the law!

Same writer, same content, different consequences.