The alternative media is having a dramatic impact on the worldview of the country, so much so that US Senate is legislating against the only objective press left in the country.
It is a well-known fact that Senator Dianne Feinstein wants your guns and now she wants control over your words. Feinstein believes that a proposed media shield law should be applied only to who she refers to as “real reporters.” Feinstein chastises other reporters as “basement-dwelling, pajama-clad bloggers with no professional credentials”
At issue is that the government could soon decide who is a journalist and who is not. Feinstein introduced an amendment that defines a “covered journalist” as someone who gathers and reports news for “an entity or service that disseminates news and information.” The definition includes freelancers, part-timers and student journalists, and it permits a judge to go further and extend the protections to any “legitimate news-gathering activities.” In the definition introduced in Feinstein’s amendment, somebody writing for a small town paper with a circulation of 30 would receive First Amendment protections, but Steve Quayle, John Stadtmiller, Jeff Rense, Alex Jones, Michael Edwards, George Noory and Matt Drudge would not be considered journalists; and, therefore, the First Amendment would not apply to the group of aforementioned newsmen. But Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper, who according former CNN award-winning journalist, Amber Lyon, stated that the CIA bribes reporters at CNN to cover some stories while not covering others, presumably would.
Feinstein’s Amendment includes the following verbiage which goes after nearly anyone who does not work in the corporate-controlled media in which she states that one is only a real journalist if they have worked for “an entity or service that disseminates news or information by means of newspaper; nonfiction book; wire service; news agency; news website, mobile application or other new information service…news program; magazine or other periodical…or through television or radio broadcast…” These people would have to have the “primary intent to investigate events and procure material in order to disseminate to the public news or information.” Opinion journalists are probably not be covered
Congress Moves To Outlaw Alternative Media | True Activist
What is muddying the water for me and clouding my understanding, is from this article dated 9/12,,,
But the new legal protections will not extend to the controversial online website Wikileaks and others whose principal work involves disclosing "primary-source documents … without authorization."
They seem to be targeting WikiLeaks specifically but is the conclusion from above correct: "but Steve Quayle, John Stadtmiller, Jeff Rense, Alex Jones, Michael Edwards, George Noory and Matt Drudge would not be considered journalists; and, therefore, the First Amendment would not apply to the group of aforementioned newsmen." Especially in light of the cabal prevalent in MSM.
I'm not a fan of some of the above as I feel they are fear-mongering for personal gain (although I find C2C fun to listen too); but I am not a fan of any forms of censorship either. Just as I am entitled to my opinion and beliefs so too are they, as there is that clause that goes somethign like this, "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,,,"
To my uneducated eye, the following makes more sense:
Sen. Feinstein’s amendment is riddled with vague language, failing to define key terms including “agent,” entity,” “substantially contributed,” and “regularly”—on which the definition of who’s a journalist turns. Non-traditional journalists are at a disadvantage when the interpretative waters are muddy. Why? Because such vagueness invites interpretations that exclude those who are on the margins of status quo journalism, and who are often in a more vulnerable position and unable to hire legal counsel to sort through the law’s ambiguities. As a result, independent bloggers and citizen journalists would likely be interpreted out of Feinstein’s definition of journalist.
The very fact that developing a crisp, clear definition of journalist is difficult should signal to Congress that it might not be equipped to wade into the uncharted waters of deciding who is a journalist. But it’s a problem that Congress can easily avoid by linking shield law protections to the act of journalism, not the definition of who is journalist.
See also here:
So what’s the solution? Congress should link shield law protections to the practice of journalism as opposed to the profession. Not only does this fix ensure that bloggers and freelancers are not categorically denied access to the protections to which they should be entitled under the law, but also it addresses lawmakers’ concerns, recently voiced by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in a June 26 op-ed, that in the absence of a legal definition of journalist anyone can claim to be one, thereby diluting the law by stretching it beyond any relevant boundaries. We can have a line in the sand; it simply needs to be one that is meaningfully tied to what journalism actually is—a point that Wheeler eloquently makes in endorsing a similar solution.
Think I'll be saving the bathwater on this issue!!
No comments:
Post a Comment