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Unfettered 'citizen journalism' too risky
Supporters of "citizen journalism" argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don't provide. While it has its place, the reality is it really isn't journalism at all, and it opens up information flow to the strong probability of fraud and abuse. The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend.
The premise of citizen journalism is that regular people can now collect information and pictures with video cameras and cellphones, and distribute words and images over the Internet. Advocates argue that the acts of collecting and distributing makes these people "journalists." This is like saying someone who carries a scalpel is a "citizen surgeon" or someone who can read a law book is a "citizen lawyer." Tools are merely that. Education, skill and standards are really what make people into trusted professionals. Information without journalistic standards is called gossip.
I warned you this was coming. Really really read the WHOLE thing. As I said when HR 2102 was passed by the House in October:
The House, in passing this bill, is not protecting the Bill of Rights at all. It's establishing a professional class privilege in the law, one not found in the Bill of Rights, one that exempts that professional class from the civic duties of citizenship. One that places them above the law in certain respects.
It's not a "freedom of the press" bill anymore. It's become a monopoly protection act that establishes an exclusively privileged class of "paid journalists."
This is the next step in the process, rabble-rousing up an outcry for cover, followed by a push for licensing legislation. I've said it repeatedly, and loudly, and I'll say it again and again. Freedom of the press is a constitutional right of the people. It is not reserved for some pseudo-royalty class of "professional journalists."
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds quotes up my email in his update, pointing to my October post on HR 2102 linked above. Click through the "Hat Tip" link below for some excellent links to other commentary, courtesy of Professor Reynolds! Don't miss Bill Quick's great shot.
UPDATE: Over at American Thinker, Randall Hoven has a short list of a few of the MSM's failures of professionalism.
UPDATE: Mickey Kaus at Slate picks up on it, and asks "What's worse, inequality of income or inequality of rights?"
UPDATE: Bill Quick (the guy who named the blogosphere) has picked it up and says, "To the Barricades, Blogosphere!"
[Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds]
Today's Day by Day cartoon seems somehow appropriate....
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How ridiculous can one get?
"This is like saying someone who carries a scalpel is a 'citizen surgeon' or someone who can read a law book is a 'citizen lawyer.' Tools are merely that. "
No, not really. Law and surgery are different fields than journalism, and while it's crucual to have standards, the issue is good vs. bad reporting. There is clear evidence that the professionals can get it wrong just like the "amateurs" can, and while the profession of journalism ought to remain, the idea that only a select handful of elites should be trusted with the reins of the fourth estate is absurd. The Founders vested the freedom of the press into the hands of all the people, not just the established journalists.
Education, skill and standards are really what make people into trusted professionals
True, but how come so many journalists seem to go out of their way to ignore the standards, and average citizens like us have to set them straight?
"In the world you will find tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world."
John 16:33
Exactly, Rafique. How
Exactly, Rafique. How ridiculous can one get? The op/ed I linked calling for "professional standards" comes from David Hazinski, "former NBC correspondent [and] associate professor of telecommunications and head of broadcast news at the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism."
I looked through the Bill of Rights and didn't find a constitutional right of the people to practice law or medicine.
The Internet is dangerous
Didn't you know the Internet is dangerous? Please, do think of the children.
1. The analogy to law and
1. The analogy to law and medicine is poor. First of all, both require professional education as a prerequisite to entering the field. Second, both have oversight boards (AMA, ABA) and requirements for entering the field and staying in it. Those things are necessary (arguably) for the protection of the public; the concept of a "citizen lawyer" is far different from a "citizen salesman" or a "citizen statistician." Anyone with a brain can get paid by a newspaper. Restricting journalism to those who get paid for it is like restricting authorship to those who get paid for it, leading to the incredibly circular and exclusive effects that the only people who may enter the profession are those already in it. Newspapers frequently pick up talented journalists based on their prior work, much as publishers may pick up authors based on their prior work and submitted manuscripts.
Furthermore, lawyers and doctors don't get special constiutional rights. It's plain nonsense to suggest that a professional class of persons may receive extra-Constitutional rights.
2. This reminds me of a thread on Volokh about the cartels developing in many fields, such as interiour design. (The requirement in question, IIRC, prevents people from moving furniture if not so licensed, or holding themselves out as interiour designers.) There is no reason to license people in many fields, especially where the free market will sort it out. This will be the death knell of an economy that has thrived based on the mobility of people and the ability to remove inefficient and unproductive people from their jobs and replace them with better, more efficient, and more productive people.
If not for the people, it is extra-Constitutional
First, I agree with majority positions taken above. (minority to Congress)
As for Theobromophile's (I need something shorter...please?) second point above, she is right. Interior Design is much art and much building, both informed by talent and experiance. Someone has so much to pay for a new kitchen, Price, resume, references and public record can let the free market sort it out. Are we saying only professionally licensed Interior Designers deliver the best bang for the buck? Not what I see on Bravo reality TV.
My small understanding of the history of the Constitution seems to indicate we are talking about a right of the people, not a professional group. Freedom of Speech certainly serves the people. Does this bill serve the people? As a case in point, I have heard these last few weeks, far more in-depth reporting and analysis of the NIE on the internet than presented in mainstream media. The internet moved faster to expose CNN at Republican and Democratic debates than professional media. While the NYT ran an op-ed saluting Chavez, Tully posted the hard Chavezian facts. Media doesn't like this and hides behind the fantasy that every idiot will become a disemmbler of the news. Our Founding Fathers supported a robust press to give expression to the opinion of the people, not just CNN. There are laws for liable and efforts can be fashioned to limit the amount of lies that can be packaged as fact in mainstream media or the internet. Professional journalists and editors do not have a monopoly on the news and I rather doubt any citizen blogger ought to be able to conceal his source because he has an internet site.
Yes, lets give this journalist the people's rights.
My small understanding of
As I said in a comment on Tully's earlier post on this subject, I had always understood the freedom of the press protected by the First Amendment to be the freedom of access to the printing press. When exactly did "the press" first come to be used as a synonym for "the media"?
"When someone says their heart needs lifting, don't ask how come, ask how high."
Well, if Franklin
had a PC and a good copier, would he have not called himself a press? He believed an unfettered press (or what constitutes content, hardcopy and distribution) gave vital expression to the varied opinion of the people, not the opinion of a class of professionals. I'm not sure he meant acess (for money in many cases) to a group of self-declared professionals. Did not Madison intend Freedom of the Press as a right of all it's citizens.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
When did the press become "media"? Well, I'm not sure exactly. Wiki talks about the transformation of the "Fourth Estate" into today's modern media, but aren't the ideas of Press and Speech closely related and both the right of the people? If Speech and Press were so different, then why join them both in the same sentence? Would a knowledge of Latin help me here? Perhaps the qualification of serving in a Militia gives people "access" to guns. I don't see "access" mentioned in the First, but rather the "free exercise" of both Press and Speech. And do you think if our Founding Fathers had radio, they would not have included this in the First as well under Press or Speech? As I said Simon, my small understanding of the Constitution.
I had always understood the
I had always understood the freedom of the press protected by the First Amendment to be the freedom of access to the printing press.
Not exactly. Without distribution press access is pointless. Freedom of the press includes the public-square right of the soapbox in printed, the rights to publish and distribute, and there's a very good reason it's listed with freedom of speech. And with the advent of electronic technology, those rights extend to the internet and TV and so on as well.
The professional "press" enjoyed an oligopoly on electronic distribution until the last decade or so, but the internet has changed that and they really really don't like it.
study break...
I'm also theo, thea ;), TBP, or whatever else. (Should have thought much longer and harder before giving myself this appellation....)
Some of the reason that we have a Constitutional guarantee to a free press is to avoid licensing laws, like those in England that were in place until 1694 (IIRC). The idea is that you should not need gov't approval before publishing permits the publication of material without any prior restraints. The discussions around the free press clause expressly allowed for post-publication prosecution (civil and/or criminal); Jefferson (I think) said something to the effect of a free press allowing for all publication but not immunising against conviction afterwards, much as the freedom of religion clause not preventing the State from bringing an action against someone who uses religion as an excuse for wrongdoing.
Of course, using statements such as those amounts to legislative history, and is total b.s. ;) ; nevertheless, the origins of the First Amendment make it pretty clear that the "press" is whomever, whenever, whatever, and if you don't like it, sue them afterwards.
Theo it is...
If the Press however, wants to protect sources in order to get news to the people, could not an individual blogger shield his/her source even it was Bin Laden? Surely Joe Blow is not a journalist. Or is it up to the people to decide what is credible news? I can see why the line between Press and Speech gets blurred if anyone's speech can easily become a blog and then protected by laws erected to help an independent Press find sources. If that were the case, why not just protect Speech and make the Press a simple branch?
Another example
Lets say a webite called JihadiWatch.com is started by professionals who have little journalistic background. Every day they comb the web and media collating the most important reports into a daily news list. Over time they gain a wide following and pepper their re-reporting with analysis. Soon even mainstream media checks them out. Eventual some "sources" give them exclusive reports often proven correct. The government moves to have JihadiWatch reveal their source. Do they enjoy Constitutional protection? What if revealing their sources endangers them or deprives the people of information?
dangers of the internet nexus with terrorism. Despite my inclination, there seems something in the First that doesn't quite gel with some modern views of internet and media. Perhaps this was what Simon was alluding to, but I'll have to review his previous comments.
I'm not sure I'm following
I'm not sure I'm following exactly what you're saying, so apologies if this isn't foursquare with your comment, but it seems to me that what the free press clause is geared towards is limiting government regulation of access to the technological apparatus that allows you to effectively disseminate the views protected by the free speech clause. You know, originalists are often mislabeled as strict constructionists by critics, and I've never liked that label because it seems to me that Marshall had it about right in M'Culloch when he said that the nature of a constitution "requires[] that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects, be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves." Since "we must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding," the text should be construed neither "strictly ... [nor] leniently; it should be construed reasonably, to contain all that it fairly means," as Scalia put it in A Matter of Interpretation. So it may not be a strict construction of the first amendment, but I'd say that yes, your example of a JihadiWatch website would fall within the protections of the first amendment. And you could compare Kyllo v. U.S. for an example of Justice Scalia performing a similar sort of "calculate the trajectory" analysis.
You follow meandering quite well Simon
Yes, and technical apparatus covers what most deem as media from CNN to Stubborn Facts. As far as the Press goes, it was intended, if we take the Founder's views into consideration, the expression of the people's opinions. While I wondered about any person posting a blog and then claiming some protection under the shield laws, I stated an opinion that such protection should not fall on the limited set of professionals quoted above.
Your quote begs some definition of Press v Media and I unprofessionally tend to agree with the idea that reasonable falls somewhere between strict and lenient, which was the idea I was suggesting as a non-lawyer.
My link to Theo about the dangers of the internet raises some considerations about the web that seem to go beyond what most consider the range of the "Press", but perhaps such activity is covered under established rules about classified information. Would a video game company be free to sell an on-line war game with useful digital information of NYC buildings? I note that Hizb'Allah now uses an Siraeli/Hizb"allah war game to train militants in Lebanon. Should an advanced google map program be available to everyone? Certainly the internet produces new situations where shield laws, dangerous information and damaging propaganda threaten national security. Still, in principle it seems Freedom of Speech and its branch of the Press are "people's rights. I tend to take Tully's line.
Study break #2
My comparative con law prof. said two weeks ago that yes, bloggers should be able to enjoy protection from revealing their sources, on par with journalists. So according to one non-American con law prof., yes, Stubborn Facts bloggers can protect the anonimity of their sources. ;)
Shield law
I'm sure to reveal my ignorance here, but it seems to me that when a "law" (i.e. shield law) conflicts with a "right" (especially a Constitutionally guaranteed right), then the law in questions is "unconstitutional" (i.e. S-O-L).
Besides, isn't shield law more of a privelege than an actual law?
Owen, you have
Owen, you have competition...as a non-attorney I expose my legal ignorance all the time here, but it results in anyone reading (including myself) gaining a better understanding of the law. And rarely, I surprise the lawyers.
There are shield laws in various states, but no federal shield law. The federal protections, such as they are, date back to 1972 and the case of Branzburg v. Hayes. As Justice White said then in the majority opinion:
The press has continually pushed for a blanket shield privilege that would exempt them as journalists from being subject to the same duty of any citizen to testify when so required. They have done so under a cry of "Freedom of the Press" and the First Amendment. And as I said in the earlier post, that's a reasonable debate to have in regard to confidential sources, with some sound arguments both for and against. (I'm against, myself, and think the balancing test in Branzburg is reasonable--but it's a reasonable debate to have.)
But as Hazinski indicates and as the text of HR 2102 shows, the press wants to restrict this privilege to themselves alone, to a self-designated "guild" that can exclude citizens acting as press from that right/privilege. But the First Amendment right is not a right pertaining only to a self-declared and self-annointed privileged class of "the press." Freedom of the press is a right of the people. Any right asserted or "discovered" as a right resulting from "freedom of the press" must of necessity apply to the people, whenever they should act as "the press," and it is not the privilege of the media to decide who is or is not "the press."
I am acting as "the press" right now, just as I did when I used anonymous first-hand sources in Venezeula to report on the election there, and when I have (quite often) used anonymous first-hand sources in Iraq to report on events there. That I am not paid to do this reportage should make no difference whatsoever for constitutional assertions--I most assuredly AM acting as "press" under the First Amendment. The claim that the editorialism of blogs excludes them is likewise puffery--the "press" right is explicitly grounded in the right to publish criticism of the government freely, among other things.
HR 2102 would exclude me from the shield law because I am not a "guild member." It is therefore NOT in any way, shape, or form a First Amendment bill.
In short, the "professional" press wants to establish a monopoly protection act that gives them rights and privileges over and above those of citizens, to annoint themselves a pseudo-royalty class under the law under guise of the First, and it's just not there. "Privilege" is indeed the precise word, and not "right." Privilege as in PRIVATE LAW.
Shield law
Thanks Tully.
It seems to me that "shield law" worked well for its time, but that as technology changes, so does society. The consequences of changing technology should not be a rolling back of rights in favor of privilege but rather the opposite.
Or to put it another way: if they want to take away my blog, they'll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.
That I am not paid to do
Well, it's your own fault for not putting one of those paypal things in the corner of the browswer window, so that you could be paid for your reporting. :)
You're overstating
Anyone with a brain can get paid by a newspaper.
You're overstating the qualifications.
Concerning the update, and Randall Hoven's list, I must say that
I found this highly dubious, and frankly absurd:
I did receive a few complaints for not having "conservatives" on the list. There turns out to be a good reason for that: there just aren't that many who pass the criteria for clear dishonesty in the public debate
Really? Are you sure? Methinks he needs to look a bit harder.
This was just a tangential point that ultimately doesn't have much bearing on the overall discussion, but I felt the need to point it out.
"In the world you will find tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world."
John 16:33
No argument, Rafique,
No argument, Rafique, but...
He's certainly one-sided, but no matter how you cut it the list can only grow longer, not shorter. So for the purposes of this discussion....
Right. I agree.
"In the world you will find tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world."
John 16:33
the eye kept on
I know you keep a close on eye on this. I agree wholeheartedly that it's nonsense for the press to think they deserve the right to regulate other folks out of journalism.
And I also agree 100% with Simon's originalist take... the entire point of freedom of the press is to prevent folks' rights to free speech from being infringed upon. The special pleading of some media folks on this count always takes extra care to equate freedom of the press with the practice of journalism as we know it in modern times. But journalism is just a SUBSET of speech. Freedom of the press is broadly about speech, not narrowly about journalism.
It's a very sad thing I guess that folks with a little common sense have to even raise their voices to point this out. File it under eternal vigilance, eh?
Anyway, every time you bring up the prospect of journalists getting the special protections you describe (either from average jane and joe competition or from legal testimony), my initial reaction is that of having no concern whatsoever that either might come to pass. That's a real sin on my part, to misunderestimate the mischievous capacity of idiotarians.
_________
I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy for those who think, and a tragedy for those who feel. -Horace Walpole
An interesting aside
About a year ago I met a person X from Israel. He/She is Jewish and from the Israeli Peace movement. I was told a story where the IDF had sealed off an Arab enclave with warnings to protestors not to journey there for a rally. A crowd used a different road to get there, but the IDF appeared and ordered the protestors to go home. They turned and left but one protester was shot in the back and died. Now I wasn't there, so I don't know how truthful the story was, but several Iraelis told me things like this go on and are hushed up by Israeli media.
If I posted this story in more detail at SF and the government wanted me to reveal who the witness was, that person might have their visa revoked and could no longer visit family here. The average Joe sometimes has the ability to connect to sources of news the media does not. Reporting a story like this ought to be treated like a real report and protected by the same process that helps the NYT and WAPO. My right to have this speech and post it is not abridged peresently, but I wonder what protection I have in terms of being a "press" armed only with my computer and printer. I once was having an email debate with a girl from Iran. I broke it off when I considered to what degree my email might raise some flags by some total awareness program. If I was a NYT reporter, perhaps I would feel my correspondence was protected with the power of the NYT behind me.
A strange parodox. In the GWOT and tyranny, individual citizens are a great news resource. Yet on the other hand, the activities of individuals to organize, communicate and promote dangerous information and conspiracy has never been greater. The balance between security and liberty is indeed a delicate matter and not as simple as slogans.