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MahaAtalFirstPaper 12 - 09 Apr 2009 - Main.DanaDelger
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The Freedom of the Press is Guaranteed to Those who Strive for One
By MahaAtal - 09 Mar 2009 | | | Ted has already addressed at least some of what I planned to say, but there’s a bit more I’d like to address. | |
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< | First, I want to say I’m not entirely unsympathetic when you say that you are “trying to preserve and protect [a certain] set of [journalistic] practices.” I do, in fact, have at least some appreciation for the journalistic values you espouse, but I simply do not believe that the First Amendment should be the mechanism you shanghai to protect them. When you note that “There is different information and different analysis that emerges when I go in search of information as a reporter than when I do so as a citizen-blogger,” you miss the point--- the law has literally no relation to the personal difference you experience when you work as a “blogger” or a “reporter.” This is what Ted is pointing out when he notes that there is no “legal responsibility to balance the legal privileges given to the press under US law.” You may say there is a difference between being a reporter or being a blogger, and perhaps there is, but this is a norm that can and should be enforced either informally or through journalistic education which indoctrinates such values in its students (or as Ted also notes, perhaps through other means, like the distribution of press passes). The Bill of Rights, on the other hand, is decidedly unsuited to create and enforce a system that is “inherently unequal.” | >
> | First, I want to say I’m not entirely unsympathetic when you say that you are “trying to preserve and protect [a certain] set of [journalistic] practices.” I do, in fact, have at least some appreciation for the journalistic values you espouse, but I simply do not believe that the First Amendment should be the mechanism you shanghai to protect them. When you note that “[t]here is different information and different analysis that emerges when I go in search of information as a reporter than when I do so as a citizen-blogger,” you miss the point--- the law has literally no relation to the personal difference you experience when you work as a “blogger” or a “reporter.” This is what Ted is pointing out when he notes that there is no “legal responsibility to balance the legal privileges given to the press under US law.” You may say there is a difference between being a reporter and being a blogger, and perhaps there is, but this is a norm that can and should be enforced either informally, via social systems and pressures, or formally through journalistic education which indoctrinates such values in its students. You might also enforce this as Ted also notes through other means, like the distribution of press passes. The Bill of Rights, on the other hand, is decidedly unsuited to create and enforce a system that is “inherently unequal.” | | | I also want to address this point: “[W]hen the Constitution was written, the Press was the physical printing press. But we've long abandoned the idea of literal interpretations. As I understand it, the intent of the Free Press clause is to preserve the distinction between professionally produced content and amateur produced content.” First, and perhaps least importantly, as to your contention that “we’ve long abandoned literal interpretation,” there are a few Justices on our Supreme Court you might like to meet--- namely Scalia and Thomas. I realize from your response that you aren’t a law student, but if you were, you would know (probably in most instances to your unending chagrin) that strict originalism and literal interpretation of text are at a high water mark of their influence on our Judiciary, both in the Supreme Court and elsewhere. |
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