our brave political warriors are now elevated to sainthood having won the good fight against us, we the people, and our money. Oh, happy day.We-the-people are to be fobidden to criticize our betters on a paid ad, but journalists are to be free as birds to say what they want for pay. That is only right, because journalists are objective. We know they are objective, because that's just what they tell us.
Logical.
The origins of the present contretemps trace back to the start of mass marketing in the 1830s, when mass production of newspapers made it necessary to position your newspaper as being "objective" rather than trying to market only to people who agreed with your editorials. But journalism was limited to newsprint, and was unambiguously "the press". Part of it, of course--magazines and books are printed, too . . .
But the real subversion of the First Amendment occured with the institution of broadcasting. Wireless communication is a technology created by we-the-people, but broadcasting was created by the FCC when it granted exclusive high-power transmitting rights to the few and censored transmitting by the many. What was merely cute when radio was in the "early adopter" phase has, now that TV is the undisputed center of political discourse, produced a constitutional morass.
Broadcast journalism is not the free press but de facto an arm of the government--and broadcast political advertisements are effective but hugely expensive. Broadcasting is the entire reason "campaign finance reform" has any political appeal at all. Eliminating politics from broadcasting is not just acceptable but very desirable, even necessary. But journalism is politics--and we need not hold our breath waiting for that to be admitted by journalists.
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