Disappointing 1A perspective from the Senate: Defining a journalist

[AZRedhawk44]

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/09/12/Senate-panel-Oks-measure-defining-a-journalist

This is dangerous to guerrilla journalism.


ETA:
Frankly, I consider "the press" to be whomever presents something of an expository or op-ed nature that people want to read.  APS, THR, ADVRider, GRM, Freedom's Phoenix, HuffPo... all of these are the press.  Even individual blogs.

The protection of the press was designed in the 18th century to protect the ability to post agit-prop broadsheets on liberty poles all over the countryside, and similar activities.

[Marnoot]

The statists know that the 1A is just as dangerous to them as the 2A, and they'll try the same creeping incrementalism to bring it under control. Register, track, and control "journalists".  Create "prohibited persons". Increase number and severity of "reasonable controls" on journalism.

[drewtam]

Freedom of press is freedom to publish, for all people. Not just for some special journolist class.

[zxcvbob]

Major network and newspaper journalists are "the only ones perfess'nal enuf" to handle a... (bang!)

[AZRedhawk44]

I just realized that the perfect way to implement what they SAY they want to do with this legislation (protect confidential informants for legitimate news stories)... is to protect the STORY rather than the publication or the journalist.

Litmus test being:  If it offends government and involves a confidential source, it must be protected by default.

After all... this is government talking about what cannot be coerced... by government.

[Ron]

"I think journalism has a certain tradecraft. It's a profession. I recognize that everyone can think they're a journalist," Feinstein said.

[SADShooter]

"I think journalism prostitution has a certain tradecraft. It's a profession. I recognize that everyone can think they're a journalist prostitute," Feinstein said.

FTFH.

[roo_ster]

Freedom of press is freedom to publish, for all people. Not just for some special journolist class.

This.  Plus eleventy.

[zxcvbob]

The end-game is government "may issue" licensing of journalists, where the only protected speech is speech that the .gov approves of.  It'll be just like Communist China.  (I don't think it'll ever go that far, but that's what they want)

[RocketMan]

The end-game is government "may issue" licensing of journalists, where the only protected speech is speech that the .gov approves of.  It'll be just like Communist China.  (I don't think it'll ever go that far, but that's what they want)

Too much the optimist.  It will go that far.  Just one small step at a time.

[just Warren]

The end-game is government "may issue" licensing of journalists, where the only protected speech is speech that the .gov approves of.  It'll be just like Communist China.  (I don't think it'll ever go that far, but that's what they want)

Funnily enough this is something that happened in Atlas Shrugged.  Not that anything she wrote made sense or could be used as warning of course.

[Scout26]

Wouldn't the first pamphleteers and their posted "notices" be the Revolutionary-era version of today's bloggers? 

[Tallpine]

Wouldn't the first pamphleteers and their posted "notices" be the Revolutionary-era version of today's bloggers? 

Pretty good reason for the "king" to want to shut them down.

[Levant]

The discussion of who's a journalist is moot.  The amendment protects freedom of speech "or" the press - that's a logical or, not an either-or.  

Of course I wouldn't put it past this Congress to tell us that it's an either-or and since they've defined a press and protected them, there's no need for freedom of speech any more.

[Waitone]

"Journalists" are not threat to statists (regardless of ideology) as long as the reside safely and comfortably in the statists tank.  Step outside the tank and suddenly they become a threat.  "Journalists" have been in the progressive tank since it inception.  New technology allows anyone with the gumption access to a soapbox to spout their views.  Now the statists have a problem.  There exists a whole species of "journalists" who are by definition out of the control of statists.  The reaction is to now to define and regulate those who engage in the act of "journalism".  Meanwhile the marketplace is wreaking havoc on tanked journalists.