Judge: Freedom of the Press for Commercial Use Only

Kilroy writes "According to a Seattle judge freedom of the press only applies to paid journalists. As a result, he has indefinantly imprisoned a 70 year old former journalism professor for posting mean things on the web. I wonder how much something has to earn in order to make it legal to publish?"

Comments

not so crazy?

[tps12]

I know my initial reaction to this, along with that of all the other slashbots, was pure horror. "The Constitution!" I cried, "What about the Constitution?!?"

But I've been thinking since then, and I have a new perspective. When the Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution, it was 1776. That was a while ago. Needless to say, desktop publishing was not a reality. In fact, publishing was very expensive, prohibitively so for the majority of Americans. The Founding Fathers thought that it would be acceptible to have a free press exactly because "not just anyone" could publish!

In today's world of computers and Britney Spears, anyone can publish. Therefore, the rules need to change. The controls that used to be built-in in the form of costs must now be moved into the legal realm.

Jefferson would want it this way.