11. Kevin J. Martin
Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
He may look innocent and unassuming, but Martin is arguably the most powerful bureaucrat on the Web. He took over the reins of the FCC in 2005, and to date he has encountered minimal controversy and none of the scandals that predecessor Michael Powell suffered. But that doesn't mean he couldn't cut off your Internet connection like that if he really wanted to.
Who says that is a worthy goal? Not the Constitution. Does the Constitution say it is not a worthy goal? IMHO it does indeed. Because presses don't run on love, they run on money. Money for ink and paper, money for distribution, and money for reporters and editors. When the First Amendment stipulates freedom of the press, it is stipulating that money can be spent to influence politics.The money that runs the presses comes from subscribers and from advertisers. Why is that money inherently pure, and your money is dirty? The startup money to build a newspaper can come from investors who got their money in any legal way; it doesn't have to come from some other newspaper.
The papers - and the broadcast journalists - say that journalists are objective, and they have Codes of Ethics up on their walls in gothic type to prove it. They say that the First Amendment allows them to "speak truth to power." It is one thing to have a right to manifest a particular virtue, and it is quite another thing to actually do it. Indeed, I have a right to own the Brooklyn Bridge - and if you think that that proves that in fact I do own it, I will be willing to sell my rights to that bridge for a very reasonable price.
Even were it true, it would be impossible to prove the negative that the portion of the truth which a newspaper prints is not "a great lie" - as Benjamin Franklin said is often the case with partial truths. The reality is, of course, that the portion of the truth which journalism systematically tells is the part that makes journalism seem important. The portion of the truth, that is, which promotes talk and criticism over action taken in the face of incomplete knowledge of the results the action will have. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker - and indeed the policeman and the soldier - all are constantly at risk of being second-guessed or even lied about by journalism. And by politicians who promote the same things that journalism promotes, whom journalism awards positive labels such as "moderate" or "progressive" or "liberal."