[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The 500 pound gorilla in this issue is the fact that the Constitution does not presume that journalists are objective. Hamilton and Jefferson sponsored competing newspapers in which to wage their partisan battles, and there is no crime in that at all - as the First Amendment clearly implies.

There is no crime in a newspaper being partisan, even to the point of proclaiming its own objectivity(!), straining at gnats and swallowing camels all the while. I view those sponsored newspapers as being the start of political parties, which the Framers styled "faction" - and had hoped to avoid (the 12th Amendment was necessitated by the reality of political parties).

But if you view newspapers as having the motive and opportunity to be partisan, it makes no sense to give the perpetrators of journalism special rights. The idea that the newspapers should have the right, codified in law, to demand a special prosecutor (a law, now lapsed, which Clinton advocated and self-righteously signed) or to be able to refuse to testify about a crime about which a particular journalist patently has relevant knowledge, is ridiculous.

And if it is ridiculous to propose that newspapers should have such authority, what is one to say about the idea that government sponsored entities like licensed broadcasters or even PBS and NPR should have such authority!? And what should be said about the idea that we should accept such imposture on the basis that when the government does so it uses a novel and unrepresentative branch of government completely divorced from the framework by which even judges are selected!?

If the government is presumptively wise and objective, we need no elections which might dispossess the wise and objective solons who populate it. But if we do in fact need elections to keep the government even minimally honest and public-spirited, is it appropriate that we allow the government to favor the few among us whom the government deigns to favor with its imprimatur that their words are "broadcast in the public interest"???

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

[E.G.C.]

Media bias bump.

[expatpat]

But if you view newspapers as having the motive and opportunity to be partisan, it makes no sense to give the perpetrators of journalism special rights.

Unfortunately, they do have special rights, thanks to CFR. They can make as many statements as they like supporting one candidate or another at election time, but we peons cannot do the same without problems from the FEC.