Biased, partisan, and just plain bad journalists are *exactly* who the 1st Amendment is about

[Recursion]

And for all my complaints about Greenwald's work, he's Edward R. Murrow compared to the pamphleteers and newspaper writers that were the norm back when the first amendment was passed (you think Fox is bad? look at the early anti-Federalist press some time).

I don't think this is particularly applicable to the Miranda issue (he being neither a journalist, an American, nor subject to US law), but I've seen this attack creeping up on "my" side of things and I don't like it: Greenwald has a God-given right to be a bad, biased, partisan hack, and I owe it to him to defend that right.

[sweetloukillbot]

1. +1

I don't want him silenced, but I would like him to shut up!

[joshcryer]

2. Recursion, you're not on any "side."

Please don't let the name calling nasty characters make you think you're on any "side." I find you to be a very reasonable, very thoughtful person, a lot of people come to DU for drama and to name call and insult other people and to "win arguments on the internet." I do not consider you nor quite a few long timers on any side. It's more about figuring what the fuck is going on more than anything else.

If people saying he's a bad, biased, partisan hack, and likewise saying he shouldn't be on the air, then fair enough, I suppose. But I see a lot of people saying Fox News shouldn't be on the air, too. I've seen justifications for shutting down entire TV stations and newspapers here.

I'm all for bringing back the Fairness Doctrine (the SCOTUS ruled it constitutional, rightly so), btw.

[Recursion]

3. That's kind of you, thanks

I'm all for bringing back the Fairness Doctrine (the SCOTUS ruled it constitutional, rightly so), btw.

The more I think about it, the more I think that for all its problems the Fairness Doctrine was the best bad idea we had.

[joshcryer]

4. Interestingly, the FCC could bring it back at any time.

It wasn't law, it was an FCC requirement. It of course wouldn't apply to cable news, where most of the shitty reporting is, anyway, but it'd be nice, since NBC couldn't be forced to shut down its Democrat documentaries, and such, by the RNC.

[last1standing]

5. I agree with just enough of that OP to rec it.

I think Greenwald is a pretty good journalist but he, like every human, has his flaws. Regardless, whether it's Fox, 700 Club, the Enquirer, or the NY Times, they all have a first amendment right to publish in this country and any constitutional scholar will tell you that without the first, all the other amendments would be useless.

By the way, couldn't agree more with your comment about early American pamphleteers. From what I've read Jefferson and Adams were two of the worst.

[Whisp]

10. The Media Can Legally Lie.

http://www.projectcensored.org/11-the-media-can-legally-lie/

In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States.

Back in December of 1996, Jane Akre and her husband, Steve Wilson, were hired by FOX as a part of the Fox “Investigators” team at WTVT in Tampa Bay, Florida. In 1997 the team began work on a story about bovine growth hormone (BGH), a controversial substance manufactured by Monsanto Corporation. The couple produced a four-part series revealing that there were many health risks related to BGH and that Florida supermarket chains did little to avoid selling milk from cows treated with the hormone, despite assuring customers otherwise.

According to Akre and Wilson, the station was initially very excited about the series. But within a week, Fox executives and their attorneys wanted the reporters to use statements from Monsanto representatives that the reporters knew were false and to make other revisions to the story that were in direct conflict with the facts. Fox editors then tried to force Akre and Wilson to continue to produce the distorted story. When they refused and threatened to report Fox’s actions to the FCC, they were both fired.(Project Censored #12 1997)

[last1standing]

14. And?

I'm not sure what this means in relation to my post.

[JDPriestly]

6. Right.

It's especially shocking to see some of the wanna be, beginning, not yet recognized, independent journalists who post their material on DU from time to time criticizing Greenwald. In the marketplace of ideas, everybody gets to compete.

Greenwald is simply publishing documents and talking about documents that the government or its contractors prepared. He is not telling lies. People may disagree with his interpretations of the documents or his summaries of them, but the documents are the important things. The rest is editorializing and we are all entitled to express our opinions on such things.

Greenwald is within his rights. He is not printing the documents in the US. He is not expressly disseminating them here as far as I can tell.

As the Guardian is said to have told the UK government, Greenwald can publish what he has in some country that will not do the US bidding with regard to their publication. The US is not sovereign in every part of the world.

I think the US should ignore this matter. That would be the wise strategy for the NSA, the CIA and Obama.

[Recursion]

7. USG has bungled this response from day 1

No argument there.

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. even in Saudi Arabia people are free to publish documents approved by the government for publishing

The free press means the right to publish that which the government doesn't want published. The right to be partisan, obnoxious, opinionated and even wrong - is what free speech and free press is all about.

[99th_Monkey]

9. K & R ~ nt

[Egnever]

11. Absolutely

but I dont think that it follows that because you are a journalist you are therefore exempt from laws concerning stolen materials. Simply that you can write about whatever you like hack or not.

I don't think anyone is advocating prosecution of Greenwald or his associates for bad journalism.

[Recursion]

12. The protections for journalists must be as broad as the law allows

Incidentally, I'm still not entirely persuaded personally that the classified documents were the legal theory under which Miranda was detained at Heathrow, and barring any further announcement from Scotland Yard I'm going to avoid speculating.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Free speech is to defend speech you don't like. It's like abortion rights.

The point of rights and laws to protect rights is to defend people and actions you don't like. (The larger generic plural "you&quot

By defending them, it means that when tables turn and you must be defended, there are precedents and defenders ready for you.

It's like abortion. Nobody likes abortion and everybody would like to avoid it if possible, but we defend a woman's right to choose to do something we don't like if she decides it is the best thing for her for her reasons.

The founders warned about the "Tyranny of the Majority" and put rights into the Constitution.