The 1st Amendment isn’t about journalism. A journalist has no more right to free speech than a garbage collector. The moment the government determines who is a journalist and who isn’t, journalism will be nothing but propaganda for government.
Ping!
Exactly. There was politician (republican actually) that wanted to "license" journalists. Dan Rather wanted a huge tax break for news organization (there's some irony). Liberals want the Fair Speech Act and for it to be illegal to lie for news anchors (and they get to determine what's a lie and when that rule is enforced).
They might as well consolidate all the news and call it Pravda.