Congress Moves against the Free Press

Media Shield law defines “journalist”

Keith Farrell

                  A bill proponents say is designed to protect journalists and their ability to keep their sources confidential is causing controversy.  Opponents say the Media Shield law is an affront to the First Amendment because it defines who qualifies as a journalist, and thus who qualifies for protection.  More importantly, it defines who is not.  CA Senator Diane Feinstein specifically exempted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from protection, prompting a response from his DC based attorney, Barry Polack.  “The very purpose of the First Amendment is to prevent Congress from picking and choosing which type of sources of information are worthy of protection,” Polack points out.

drudgeFamed internet newsman Matthew Drudge derided the law and called Feinstein a “fascist” in reaction.  Drudge reminded his Twitter followers that a federal judge once ruled that was “not a reporter, a journalist, or a news gatherer.”  A ridiculous statement to make about the man who runs one of the highest trafficked news sites in the nation and who broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal.  Drudge Tweeted that 17-year-old bloggers are just as important as Wolf Blitzer.  He is absolutely correct.

Freedom of the press, along with the rest of the First Amendment, applies equally to all Americans.  All Americans are free to report news and publish their opinions.  One does not need special qualifications for this, and the idea that one must obtain permission from government to do so is, as Drudge points out, fascist.  The notion that someone working for MSNBC has the right to report news with protections afforded by the First Amendment but the average American does not, is contrary to the tenets of a free society.

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William Blackstone

18th century British Jurist and legal expert William Blackstone one wrote that “The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state: but this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications… Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public: to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press.”[i]  The Bill of Rights is clear, Congress may make no law “prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the free press.”  To define, in law, who is and is not a journalist could strip legal protections from independent and aspiring journalists.  The great journalistic pursuit of truth and justice would then suffer as only those deemed qualified by the State will be allowed to join in such an endeavor.


[i] William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Volume 4: A Facsimile of the First Edition of 1765-1769

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