Freedom of the press ought to belong to all... not just to approved 'journalists'

Online Journalism Review ^ | October 16, 2009 | Robert Niles

[abb]

Can you do journalism and not be a "journalist"?

Do people declared "journalists" get special speech and press rights that other American citizens do not enjoy?

Can anyone enjoy the right to free speech and free publication, even if that individual is not a full-time professional reporter?

These are some of the important legal questions that American politicians and bureaucrats must confront now that the Internet has made possible for people other than employees of major media companies to reach large and widespread audiences.

In recent weeks, federal officials seems to be favoring a view that certain individuals enjoy more speech and publication rights than others. New regulations from the Federal Trade Commission and a proposed federal shield law create legal double standards for individuals creating information for the public - one for employees and contractors of media companies and another for everyone else, including self-employed publishers.

This split calls into question what the First Amendment means, and whom it was intended to protect. Henry Mencken famously said that "freedom of the press is limited to those who own one." But with the Internet making a "press" available to anyone for free, does that "press" have to be of a certain type, or reach a certain number of people, to qualify for First Amendment protection?

The FTC this month published new regulations on the disclosure of advertiser-sponsored messages which could force bloggers and other independent publisher to publicly disclose every book, CD or sporting event admission that they receive in the course of their work, or face thousands of dollars in fines. Yet the FTC explicitly exempted offline, established media publishers from the new regulations.

Book blogger Edward Champion interviewed Richard Cleland of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection last week, prompting an evisceration of Cleland's remarks by DailyKos' Markos Moulitsas. Mark Cuban also publicly mocked the FTC rules.

Personally, I would love to see a strong crackdown on deceptive advertising. Businesses should not have the right to mislead the public by paying other parties to republish specific advertising messages, without disclosing that they are paid ads.

But the Supreme Court has granted First Amendment free-speech protection to quite a bit of commercial speech. And there's a huge difference between paying a blogger to republish a specific commercial message and sending another blogger a free MP3 of a new music track to review.

The FTC should recognize that difference. Cleland's remarks and its own guidelines (see page 47), however, suggest that the commission's leadership remains oblivious. The concept that bloggers can cover their beats critically, and not merely as shills, seems lost upon the FTC.

I do not believe that the purposed of the First Amendment was to provide legal protection to specific class of corporations, namely, newspaper companies. The intent was, and should continue to be, to empower the people of the country, collectively and as individuals, to keep a watchful eye on their government and communities, and to speak in advocacy of their beliefs.

The Internet has fulfills the Founders' promise of a free press to the people. No longer is "freedom of the press" limited to an elite few, as was the case in Mencken's day. People who have devoted their careers to reporting and publishing news should welcome this functional expansion of the First Amendment, providing us millions of new potential allies, engaged in our communities. A handful of clueless bureaucrats in the FTC should not be empowered to stand in their way.

Nor should established news organizations welcome what the FTC is trying to do. Unfortunately, the New York Times has, writing in an recent editorial:

"This is a matter of principle, not medium, and the new rules are not an excessive burden. The guidelines state that endorsers must disclose payments in cash or in kind from companies whose products they endorse. Telling a commentator flogging a product online to disclose commercial ties does not constitute a challenge to free speech."

I welcome reading the Times' movie critics noting in each of their reviews how they saw that film for free. And for the Times' book critics doing the same for the books that they review. I suspect, however, that will never happen. Why? Because the new rules are a matter of medium, and are not an excessive burden only to those, like the New York Times, who have been exempted from following them.

Here's hoping that Congress strikes down the FTC rules before they take effect. Or that a deep-pocketed blogger, such as Cuban or Kos, takes on the FTC in court, not leaving that task to middle-class online journalists who lacks the bank account to challenge the feds.

There ought to be no special class of citizen called a "journalist." Anyone who does journalism, even if for just a moment in their lives, ought to enjoy the protections of the First Amendment when they choose to speak or to publish. Otherwise, we are ceding to unelected corporate employers the power to determine who gets First Amendment rights, or not.

Freedom of the press belongs to all Americans, and not just to the newspaper industry - despite what the FTC and the New York Times would have you believe.

[abb]

Of interest to our group.

[abb]

ping

[abb]

http://www.suntimes.com/business/1829008,chicago-sun-times-investors-101509.article
James Tyree names Chicago Sun-Times investors

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-biz-sun-times-investors-tyree-oct16,0,6038964.story
Names of Sun-Times investors emerge

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped1016beckoct16,0,2391601.story
Love him, hate him: Your reaction?

http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_ap_intimations_of_politico.php
The AP: Intimations of Politico

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i8ecb95ad2867bbdbf3ea9514786f0f2e
Ted Turner wants to run CNN again

[Mark was here]

There ought to be no special class of citizen called a "journalist."

Exactly.

[abb]

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/364355-Stephanopoulos_To_Be_Primary_Sub_For_Sawyer.php
Stephanopoulos To Be Primary Sub For Sawyer

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/358418-_Yellow_Light_Democrats_Weigh_In_On_Net_Neutality.php
“Yellow Light” Democrats Weigh In On Net Neutality

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/358297-Westin_Rejects_Infusing_Opinions_Into_ABC_s_Reporting.php
Westin Rejects Infusing Opinions Into ABC’s Reporting

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/10/16/the-collaboration-economy/
The collaboration economy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/15/AR2009101502354.html
A Deal for NBC Could Be Comcastic

http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/
Post-NBC Ben Silverman Snarling At Media

http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/ted-turner-wants-to-run-time-warner-is-he-taking-his-meds/
Ted Turner Wants To Re-Run Time Warner (Is He Taking His Meds?)

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004023014
Ted Turner: No Fan of Print Newspapers

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-redbox-oct16,0,4111569.story
Redbox DVD vending company bargains for success

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/conde_nast_slices_staff_at_golfing_bTPaDM0IkNE79duNFtdIVK
Condé Nast slices staff at Golfing, Media groups

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Times-Co-wont-rule-out-job-apf-898127001.html?x=0&.v=2
Times Co. won’t rule out job cuts at Boston Globe

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004022708
EXCLUSIVE: Huffington Post Passes WashingtonPost.com in Unique Visitors, in September

[abb]

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/
The un-sale of the Boston Globe

http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/10/what-the-nyts-bay-area-report-looks-like-in-print/
What the NYT’s Bay Area Report looks like in print

[Jacquerie]

Obama will be unable to consolidate power until the pesky internet and talk radio are brought to heel.

[GeronL]

Someday we will have $2,500 subscriptions to a dailt pamphlet

[abb]

Obama will be unable to consolidate power until the pesky internet and talk radio are brought to heel.

It won't happen. The internet is the most liberating and freedom-enhancing form of human communications invented since the dawn of mankind. Human animals are THE most social creatures ever. We were meant to communicate with each other by Divine Providence.

Tyranny hasn't a chance any more.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

There ought to be no special class of citizen called a "journalist." Anyone who does journalism, even if for just a moment in their lives, ought to enjoy the protections of the First Amendment when they choose to speak or to publish. Otherwise, we are ceding to unelected corporate employers the power to determine who gets First Amendment rights, or not.

Article 1 Section 9:

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States

IOW, "the press" or "journalist" cannot legally be a title of nobility which makes "some animals more equal than others."

OTOH, the First Amendment does not apply to the Internet, the radio, or even the telegraph - at least not directly. They weren't invented yet, and were not and could not have been mentioned - but that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter for two reasons: first, the Constitution is a (truly) progressive document:

Article 1 Section 8:

The Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries . . .

. . . which means that even tho those particular inventions lay in the future, they were in principle contemplated by the framers and not specifically excluded from the freedom which is

the mission of the Constitution:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The First Amendment, indeed the entire Bill of Rights, was opposed by Madison and the Federalists not because they opposed the rights but because they feared that the construction of Constitution would not adhere to the

Ninth Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

That is, they feared that the Bill of Rights would be treated not as a floor under the rights of the people, but as a ceiling limiting them. Which is precisely what happens when the government censors a new communications technology on the pretext that it was not mentioned in the First Amendment.

The Right to Know

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[Landru]

Thanks for the ping, my friend.
Very busy day, *must* split.

Bump for later read!! :^)

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Henry Mencken famously said that "freedom of the press is limited to those who own one." But with the Internet making a "press" available to anyone for free, does that "press" have to be of a certain type, or reach a certain number of people, to qualify for First Amendment protection?

The criterion which Associated Press journalism applies to the question of who is entitled to First Amendment protection is painfully obvious: either you are in their club, or you are not. If you are in their club you adhere to their rules, emphatically including the one which says that you do not question the objectivity of a fellow member of the club - and you mercilessly savage anyone who does not respect that rule.

Associated Press journalism was the entire constituency of "campaign finance reform," it is their baby, and they are not in the slightest bit interested in seeing the First Amendment applied to anyone outside their club.

The prohibition against questioning the objectivity of a member of their club, and the prohibition against anyone outside the club claiming objectivity for themselves, is a form of self-flattery. It leads to the arrogance of taking their own objectivity for granted, and that is a perfect definition not of objectivity but of its opposite. AP "objectivity" is a parody of the real thing.

[T Lady]

*PING*

...In a closely related issue regarding the Press, when I listened to Anita Dunn's attack on Fox News, it really struck me just how much the attitude of President Obama somehow mirrors that of President Nixon, in how he viewed the Big Three (ABC, CBS, and NBC), along with the major print media as the enemy back in the 1970s. We could very easily see history repeating itself nearly forty years later with the rise of a Right Wing Woodward and Bernstein spilling the beans on this corrupt Administration, just as the original duo had done with Nixon.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

We could very easily see history repeating itself nearly forty years later with the rise of a Right Wing Woodward and Bernstein spilling the beans on this corrupt Administration, just as the original duo had done with Nixon.

Your keyboard to God's monitor . . . but we of course know that the situation is so much different when the alphabet soup media are running interference for the president, as in Obama's case, instead of investigating him, as in Nixon's.

Breitbart obviously is the "Woodward & Bernstein" of this era - and he strategizes over how to force AP journalism to cover stink-to-high-heaven scandals in this administration.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Freedom of speech is easy to understand. It gets complicated when you introduce “freedom to be heard.” This involves the distribution of speech, a subject you have covered many times in many ways, and that is what tyrants try to control, the distribution system.

Stalin said about voting, “It doesn’t matter who votes. It only matters who counts the votes.” The same is true of Freedom of Speech. It doesn’t matter who says what if no one hears it or if what is said can be directed to selected groups.

Again, you have covered this many times in essays on licensing airwaves, etc., but that is the battle that is being joined anew.

[T Lady]

'Breitbart obviously is the "Woodward & Bernstein" of this era - and he strategizes over how to force AP journalism to cover stink-to-high-heaven scandals in this administration.'

Pretty much the way Matt Drudge forced NBC and the other major Media outlets to cover the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal over a dozen years ago.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

True.

[Jacquerie]

It won't happen

Not if Mark Lloyd at the FCC gets his way.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2367986/posts

"The FCC would decide how and what information could flow through the Internet."

"Net neutrality is not designed to liberate, but to suppress. It's the Fairness Doctrine of the Internet that, like diversity in talk radio and the war on Fox News, is designed to marginalize and silence those who disagree with those in power."

[Jacquerie]

Uh, make that, “It will if Mark Lloyd gets his way.”