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For the umpteenth time, AP executive editor Julie Pace claims that it’s fighting for the freedom of speech of all Americans by demanding exclusive cartel access to the White House.
If Pace were at all literate, she would at least be arguing about Freedom of the Press, but neither one applies.
Now if Trump had dispatched the FBI to take smash up the presses or ban the AP from operating for refusing to use the term Gulf of America, that would be a textbook First Amendment violation.
But that’s not happening. Instead the AP isn’t getting the access it wants. And access is not a right or a freedom, it’s a privilege. One that operates on the premise that media access should be limited to select elite groups. Press access is not freedom, it’s privilege.
It did however happen to conservative journalists when the government came after them, directly or indirectly through Facebook or Twitter, for their views. Julie had no problem with that because they weren’t in the club. And the club is the actual enemy of Freedom of the Press.
“The ability to comment on politics and consume news created without interference and intimidation by the government is central to American democracy. So central, in fact, that it is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution,” Pace argues in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
It is central. It does not pertain to getting access to government events, but being able to comment and write about politics without being censored by Facebook at a command from the White House.
Tellingly, Julie Pace uses the word “consume”. To her, free speech is a passive act. The act of consuming or listening to whatever lies she tells while commanding an unearned power.
That’s not how the First Amendment was ever meant to work.
Then the M.S. Media wonder why the American People no longer trusts them they really need to take look in a mirror
Goodness not one comment and I have two sips of my morning jo left so here I go – I long ago left the main sleaze media for anything but sports scores and weather report – (“I get all the news I need on the weather report” Paul Simon “The Only Living Boy In New York”)
With the internet we can parse news feeds.
This is the only way we know in our spirit and soul what is truth and what is the devil’s lies – As Mark Twain said: “If you don’t read newspapers you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed”
Now that my hair is white and I am not – I am confounded by the people who’s hair is white if they don’t color their hair or what’s left of it, and stay glued to cable news media and they wonder why their life is so miserable?
I’m with you. I just dyed my prematurely white beard brown last night. The chicks didn’t like me looking like Moses. Not that I could do wrong by looking like Charlton Heston.
No cable news media in my place but the real media shows those Tesla terrorists getting arrested so I’m happy. Who couldn’t like that guy? He makes shit loads of money and rescues Astronauts. And Venezuelan terrorists are being arrested and deported.
And my chick is 15 years younger than me. Life is good.
Typical media arrogance. They believe freedom of the press means they can do whatever they want, go wherever they want, and are immune to public scrutiny. They truly believe that they are a privileged class.
Perhaps they are, in America and and many European countries. But outside of that, they have to be careful of what they say. Saying the wrong things at the wrong time about certain people incurs a death sentence.
I’ve been to several such countries where the media sticks to reporting on sports, entertainment and social matters. In Mexico, for example, it is dangerous for the media to say anything about the drug cartels. The favorite “sport” of the drug cartels is killing members of the media who “pry” into the affairs of the cartels.
Mr. Greenfield, though I doubt you write the headlines, I offer a style point, if you please.
“Confusing” is incorrect, “conflating” is.
There, fixed it. 🙂
Regards,