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04/14/2005: In Other *Interesting* News...
Don Wycliff (Public Editor of the Chicago Tribune) has written a good piece called Is the 1st Amendment being hijacked by the mainstream media?".
He reflects on, among other things: Who do the Main Stream Media (MSM) think they are?...and who's interests are they advancing along the way?"....Nobody likes the MSM, including, it often seems, the MSM themselves. They are too biased; too myopic; too much wedded to long, dull stories; not entertaining enough; too unwilling to admit error; too disconnected from their communities; too arrogant.
Especially too arrogant. They're always demanding special treatment with shield laws and reporter's privileges and other exemptions from the normal obligations and inconveniences of citizenship. And they have the nerve after all that to say that they're acting in the interest of the American people. Why, it's almost enough to make an ordinary person think that a few of them deserve to be locked up. It just might teach them a little humility.
Ah, but there's the rub. Because like it or not, John Q. Public can punish the news media only by hurting himself. He must cut off his nose if he would spite his face.
Thanks to the genius of the nation's founders, the freedom of the press guaranteed by the 1st Amendment belongs not just to journalists, or to the media industry, or to newspaper publishers or to those with the price of admission to some charmed circle.
No, the freedom of the press belongs to "the people."
That would be the same people .... whence comes the authority of the government to govern....
And it may also include us Bloggers as well...if the lawsuit Michael Froomkin supports has anything to to say on this issue. So, it's worth paying close attention to these and other similar cases to see how they are ultimately decided.
Karen on 04.14.05 @ 07:22 AM CST
