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Thursday, June 03, 2010

FTC Considering Regulating Journalism

One would like to say that this is unconstitutional, but some of our SC justices have interpreted "Congress shall make no law..." in the First Amendment to mean that "Congress certainly can make a law if they have good intentions...", so all bets are off. This is important.

The Credits - I believe I first read about this at Small Dead Animals.

Links - Mark Tapscott.
Jeff Jarvis at Buzz Machine.
FTC working paper on journalism.

One of the proposals is to tax each account provided by an ISP, on the theory that damn it all, people are reading newspapers online and that's just not fair. Why exactly it is not fair is not disclosed, because newspapers are by no means required to put their content online. Another is a mandatory licensing scheme. This stuff ought to strike terror into each citizen's heart, as should the proposal to create an Americorps reporting division. Will eliminating anti-trust regulations for newspapers really solve any problem? One giant news monopoly to rule us all?

Comments:
This is the usual path of decaying republics. It does not work,it creates hardship and pain for the vast majority and it may be hardwired into human beings.Insanity as policy,oh boy.
 
And, we can rename Washington, DC to Mordor. Now,where are we going to get that big eye.
 
Could we name Vlad Putin our journalism czar?
 
Oh, I think there are a few unemployed Harvard or Yale Law grads that could take care of the journalism czar position for us.

Reliable people, you know.

I'm sure we should feel honored that our troglodyte selves can contribute to the enlightened causes of journalism, even if we are too low brow to do the right thing on our own.

I think I'd go for it if we could get the editors and reporters to brawl it out in cage matches to see who got the money. Naturally, these would be broadcast for free, since we've really already paid with our ISP taxes.

One should preserve the element of competition, and I really want to see the MoDo/Blow team for the Times slug it out with the WaPo team of Milbank/Marcus.

Think creatively about the public good!
 
Our Dear Leader is already on record as being unhappy with our "imperfect" Constitution (because it focuses on all those "negative rights" -- things government should not do to citizens).

He and his crew want to reframe all those silly items in the Bill of Rights to the way they SHOULD be --ie, "positive rights" (mandates for government to take certain actions on behalf of targeted groups to achieve specific desired ends).

The NEW Bill of Rights will declare that Government SHOULD make laws ensuring that news media explain all points of view fairly -- and most importantly, the media should take special care in clarifying the Government's beneficent policies. The NEW BofR will enshrine the right of free speech as long as no one is offended or upset by that speech. The NEW BofR will permit rifles for hunting, because that's part of our "American tradition"; but bullets will be strictly regulated because those are what make guns lethal. Under the NEW BofR, we will teach about Islam in school because this broadens children's perspectives; we will be forbidden to mention Judaism or Christianity because to do so would be "religious indoctrination".

And so on. You get the drift.
 
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