On Thu, 8 Dec 2011 10:11:07 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 8 Dec 2011 08:49:59 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:
It seems that Freedom of the Press applies only to those who the
Government
considers suitable to own and operate the press.
http://news.yahoo.com/federal-judge-...014039441.html
That's not the First Amendment, Jim. That's shield laws, which are of
questionable constitutionality to begin with. I say that as someone
who has made his living as a conventional journalist for roughly half
of my career.
I've never fully bought the reasoning that gives journalists such
extraordinary protection against claims of libel and defamation. If
you libel someone, it's libel, no matter who you are....
Ed Huntress
What bothers me is the qualification standard mentioned, which practically
is a government-issued license to carry your opinion in public.
"Hernandez said Cox was not a journalist because she offered no professional
qualifications as a journalist or legitimate news outlet. She had no
journalism education, credentials or affiliation with a recognized news
outlet, proof of adhering to journalistic standards such as editing or
checking her facts, evidence she produced an independent product or evidence
she ever tried to get both sides of the story."
Well, that's the problem with the shield laws to begin with, IMO.
There was a time when all of those qualifications meant a great deal.
But bloggers and online "news" organizations have debased the currency
beyond all recognition.
But even when it was all print, and when everything I wrote at
McGraw-Hill needed the approval of three editors, at least one of whom
fact-checked my stuff, and seriously or repeatedly violating ethics
was a short trip to a pink slip with little chance of getting another
job with a top-drawer publisher, there were plenty of questionable
organizations and journalists who didn't qualify for those standards
listed by the court.
It's always been a marginal call, IMO. Today, it's a joke.
How many officially credentialed reporters and their editors would fail
those tests?
See above.
Have you ever seen a reporter characterize protesters they
agree with as 'concerned citizens' while opponents were an 'angry mob'? I
had the chance to talk to the publisher of that paper when she was
hospitalized in the same room as my mother, and discovered she was further
to the left than Lenin.
That's not libel, that's bias. Bias is legal. Libel is not. If one
doesn't recognize the difference, he should stay out of the business.
He just doesn't get it.
Ironically those reporters found themselves arguing that they weren't
professionals when they wanted overtime pay.
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=103
Like police or firefighters.
--
Ed Huntress