"I'm scared for the state of democracy in this country in terms of how the press interacts," Kuypers said. "They are, in my opinion, an anti-democratic institution because they stifle alternative voices and paint an incredibly inaccurate picture of issues and ideas."
The First Amendment provides that the newspapers and magazines and books are not to be jusdged on "fairness and accuracy" by the government but by we-the-people individually. And considering that the editorial page as a repository of explicit opinion did not even exist when the First Amendment was ratified, it would be ridulous to argue that putting opinion on the front page is some kind of infraction of the Constitution.The Constitutional problem of journalism lies strictly, IMHO, in government-licensed--in clear evasion of the First Amendment--Broadcast Journalism. By licensing communication in the airwaves, the government takes on the role of censor of those it does not license to broadcast. It is that which makes some citizens more equal than others in political speech.
The Internet is the poor man's soap box, with global reach. The newspapers, granted, have great influence and are politically homogeneous--but that is not de jure but de facto. Outlaw broadcasting of politics, root and branch (political ads, who would actually miss them? Broadcast journalism as well. That would hit talk radio as well but then--what is talk radio but "equal time" vs broadcast journalism?).
They have the newspapers, and we have the internet. Let the Internet and the newspapers duke it out. That's the only principled approach.
Congressman Billybob
Click for "Til Death Do Us Part."