Slashdot Mirror
FEC Rules Bloggers Are Journalists
Dotnaught writes "The Federal Election Commission today issued an advisory opinion that finds the Fired Up network of blogs qualifies for the 'press exemption' to federal campaign finance laws. The press exemption, as defined by Congress, is meant to assure 'the unfettered right of the newspapers, TV networks, and other media to cover and comment on political campaigns.' The full ruling is available at the FEC site. A noteworthy passage: '...an entity otherwise eligible for the press exception would not lose its eligibility merely because of a lack of objectivity...'"
> "...an entity otherwise eligible for the press exception would not lose
:)
> its eligibility merely because of a lack of objectivity..."
Well of course not. Otherwise they would have to close down CBS and Fox News right off the bat. And then come back and get CNN, ABC and NBC the next day. On the third day they would shutter the NY Times, the Washington Post and pull the plug on the EIB Network's sat feed.
Of course by day four folks would show up in Washington with their 'Sporting Goods' and voice their 'opinion' about Campaign Finance Reform, reminding Congress that in the end the 1st Amendment, along with the rest are ultimately preserved by a willingness to exercise the 2nd Amendment.
Democrat delenda est
Because some people think that there ought to be limits to Free Speech, it is required that government define exactly what types of Free Speech are really free and which ones ought not be so free.
McCain/Feingold campaign finance laws, which limit the Freedom of Speech of anyone with a political opinion, forces us to define what types of speech should remain legal.
It's sad and disappointing.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
A decision by the FCC that I can actually agree with and think is good for everybody. Will wonders never cease?!
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
How's that First Amendment working out for us?
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
And yet, an anti-Kerry documentary was pulled off the air just over a year ago...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Freedom of speech applies to political speech. Campaign finance laws are blatantly unconstitutional. This ruling is offensive because it implies that only established and recognized "press" entities qualify -- and the government, whose interest is markedly not neutral, gets to decide who is and isn't "press".
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
This development is indeed encouraging; however, the need to define free speech explicitly through enumeration is troublesome. As it was intended, free speech should be free speech as long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others. That may seem too nebulous a definition, but it's really quite cut and dry: say what you will so long as it does not deleteriously impact others. Why has such a simple and powerful idea become so diluted?
So now anyone in the US that has a blog is considered a journalist?
What kind of perks do you get when you're a journalist?
I wish every poster who predicts getting modded down ("this will probably get me modded down" etc) really gets modded down. It's as annoying as MOD PARENT $DIRECTION subjects.
I think the people trying to "censor" blogs do have a legitimate point: you can bet that everyone who is campaigning for something will set up blogs, pretending to be independant, that sing their praises. That's harder to do with "real" publications because they cost money to set up and run, and their ownership is public record.
I guess this is just part of the price of free speech. I do wonder if there's a good interface for "moderating" blogs, so that, for example, if one is sponsored by Candidate X in a sneaky way, and someone finds out, it can appear beside the name of the blog.
I'd also like to point out a fundamental difference between bloggers and journalists. I have worked at a newspaper, and spent all day calling people, attending government meetings, doing research and asking more questions before I wrote something. Bloggers tend to link to the work of real reporters, then offer comments, or worse, just repeat rumors as fact. At best, they are information scavengers, feeding on the facts hunted down by others.
Because a newspaper has advertisers and subscribers, it has to protect its reputation as being truthful. A blogger has nothing at stake. A newspaper also expects to get sued and tries to have a "truth defense" ready - to cover their butts by being accurate. They might not always succeed, but they have reason to try. I don't know whether any bloggers have been sued for libel yet, but I bet some will be. If you're going to "publish" something, you really do need to check your facts, and that usually takes more time than a hobbyist has.
I admit, I'm not always up on the latest geek news, but: ...is meant to assure 'the unfettered right of the newspapers, TV networks, and other media to cover and comment on political campaigns.'
Um...were we not already Free to comment? And if not, what do we need to do to change that?
A modern day witchhunt.
CBS - left
Fox - right
CNN - left
ABC -left
NBC -left
NY Times - left
Washington Post - right
EIB - right, but never claims to be "press", usually comments on "press". Certainly not a "primary source"... I'll give it 1/2 right.
So, from this sample we have 2:1 left bias in the media.
Is the ruling pro-right, pro-left, or just correct?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
don't post redundant comments
In a few years, there may be no more print newspapers.
Freedom of the press must survive though, so this seems a fair response to our evolving times.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
> At least you started with Fox News...fair and balanced my ass.
Of course they aren't balanced. Which, in a sort of paradox, makes them balanced since they now singlehandendly counterbalance the 'progressive' biases of the rest of the nets. Sort of a TV version of Limbaugh's infamous "I don't need equal time, I am equal time!".
Personally I don't mind bias all that much as long as it is in the open and Fox does often admit that while they make an effort to present both sides, they do come at issues with a conservative viewpoint. Neither Bill O'Reilly or Maureen Dowd bother me since both are pretty open about their position advocacy. What pisses me off is when asshats like Dan Rather or Helen Thomas claim with a straight face to be impartial in their reporting when they are as biased as Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken.
Or take the Sunday morning yak yak shows. I don't get Face the Nation over my local CBS station, but both NBC's Meet the Press and ABC's This Week program are hosted by former Democratic Party aparatchiks with no major experience in journalism prior to taking the helm at their respective high prestige posts? Harmless Coincidence? We are supposed to believe both are presenting a 'balanced' view of politics?
Democrat delenda est
I think newspapers need to do a little more naval gazing before casting stones at the bloggers.
Considering what various blog sites have found out about the "facts" that the news papers have dug up and reported, I wouldn't be so proud about everything that newspapers have done.
And the reason I say that is that the journalists that are supposedly reporting the facts of stories interject their own opinions into news events. That'd be fine if it were an opinion piece; but frequently you'll see there's a bias (left or right) thrown in just because of what the reporter thinks. For example, a reporter that is against abortion reports about "pro-life" demonstrations. A reporter that's for abortion says the same demonstration "anti-choice".
Whatever happened to just reporting the facts, and checking the bias at the door?
Think of most blogs as the opinion page of the newspaper, not the front-page news. Most blogs just refer to the news, not report it, and offer their opinion, or wild rumors, or whatever. You really can't compare most blogs to actual journalism.
Note that I said *most* blogs before you throw counter-examples at me.
However, both are (or at least should be, in a decent, moral, and rational society) considered free speech, and thus should not be regulated, censored, or have to meet with anyone's approval. It's just sad that we have to have rulings to give those basic freedoms back to us, when they should have always been there.
This is a sig. Deal with it.
... a lack of objectivity ...
Why is this news? The entire media is that way. Except Slashdot, of course.
I think the people trying to "censor" blogs do have a legitimate point: you can bet that everyone who is campaigning for something will set up blogs, pretending to be independant, that sing their praises. That's harder to do with "real" publications because they cost money to set up and run, and their ownership is public record.
Perhaps, but who would read them?
I certainly don't peruse the net in search of new blogs. Sure, I searched around for a few, but generally read ones belonging to my friends (and I certainly make no political judgement based on their blogs), or to well-established posters who have been mentioned by people I know and trust.
If a politician sets up a blog, how are they going to promote it? With campaign money? Doubtful -- that'd draw a connection between the candidate and this "stealth" blog, which is precisely what they wish to avoid. Who would find out about it? Wouldn't it be just slightly suspicious if a new blog pops up just when the candidate is running and happens to only have highly-praising (or highly derogatory) things about a particular candidate?
I doubt that politician-run blogs will have anywhere near the effect that people claim.
Even if they do create such a thing, so what? Free speech. They're welcome to say whatever they want...at least according to the Constitution they are.
Nice of the FEC to decide to give certain people that meet strict qualification the privledge of freedom of speech on political issues... However, I still think we need some garantee, maybe a constitutional amendment or something like that, that garantees freedom of speech for everyone.
Yeah great, so when is the FEC going to acknowledge
that electronic voting machines are completely
unreliable, or that all the companies that
make them in the USA happen to be run by
Republicans and some have mafia ties?
http://electionfraud2004.org/
http://bradblog.com/
In Soviet Russia, government decides who is a journalist and who is not.
Oh wait...
with power comes great responsibility..
this may be a good thing in long run.......
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2005/10/t he_myth.html
When is FEC going to declare journalists as journalist? Never. Because they always want to put a slant or spin on a story to make their side look better.
Coderz 4 Life
At best, they are information scavengers, feeding on the facts hunted down by others.
I'm no blog cheerleader but I think you are being too harsh. At best, they do create something of real value... hunting down information and publishing it. What you specified is the typical behavior, not the best the field has to offer. Which I admit is a microscopic portion, but such details are important.
"I don't know whether any bloggers have been sued for libel yet, but I bet some will be. If you're going to "publish" something, you really do need to check your facts, and that usually takes more time than a hobbyist has."
6 26254&tid=153&tid=123&tid=17
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/07/0
Bloggers have been sued and won...At least partly.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
I guess it is time for every person with a blog to update their resume. Journalist has a nice ring to it.
Ascii artist &
Does anyone actually think that anyone but the party faithful would actually buy into a seemingly "independent blogger's" pro-candidate writings? Take for existance, Right Wing News. The site is blatantly pro-Republican, to the point that its owner won't even vote for a libertarian or constitution party candidate if the Republican is even farther to the left than the Democrat. Many "right wing bloggers" for example, are just Republican Party hacks.
I'd imagine that there are two broad sides in all of this: those who are independent regardless of ideology and those who shill for the bifactional ruling party know as the Republican and Democratic parties. Who cares if the RNC or DNC pays someone to sing the praises of their candidate? Unless they're outright lying, they'll just garner the attention of the party faithful. The bloggers in the first category and most of their friends and readers won't buy into it because they're on the opposite side of the philosophical fence.
But what is amusing here is that blogging is just a way of maintaining a website. Most bloggers are not journalists because of the simple fact that their work cannot be considered journalistic. Perhaps Michelle Malkin's blog should count, but it'd be a cold day in hell that I'd consider the average blogger to be a journalist. If you're not a professional jouralist, then you aren't one IMO. The concept of a "citizen journalist" is redundant. The point of using "citizen" as a modifier is to show that you are a civilian doing a government job. Hence "citizen soldier" for example. That's a miltiaman, a man who fights as part of a civilian army organized in a military-like hierarchy. He's a soldier, but not a government soldier thus he's a "citizen soldier." Since America has only a lame-brained attempt at state media (*cough*CPB*cough*) there is no way you can qualify as a "citizen journalist." Either journalism is your career or it is something you amateurishly ape.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
> If a reporter or editor wants to endorse Bill Gates for president, they can do it. They can write a 2,000 word puff piece about how great he is and publish it in the New York Times.
> Unless of course, they quit their job and want to pay the New York Times to run the exact same article, word for word. This would now be a violation of campaign finance laws, because only reporters and editors are allowed to have opinions. If a private citizen has an opinion, he's trying to destroy the democratic process.
> Unless the non-reporter's name happens to be Bill Gates, in which case it becomes legal again. The Supreme Court has said that you can always spend money campaigning for yourself.
End result: Rich people can finance their own campaigns without any limits (see Ross Perot), but middle-class types are breaking the law if they buy ads endorsing a candidate they would like to see elected. That, and the First Amendment is flushed down the toilet.
eom
I'd much rather deal with 'blog who make no pretense. I'll do my own fact checking rather than rely on unseen gnomes to do it to my satisfaction.
I always wondered about this one. I ask what's it good for, and get something like, "So we can rebel against our governement if it goes bad." Uh, yeah, I see. But not having a second amendment didn't stop the US Revolution against the British in the first place, did it? And the trouble over in France showed guns all over the place, but they're forbidden to have guns, too, aren't they? And you'd not be rebelling against a government unless you had a problem with it's laws in the first place, so what difference does it make?
No, I'm asking because I never got around to answering this question to my satisfaction.
I suppose my main concern is; If bloggers are journalists, can they be accountable for slander. If so, 90% of the existing bloggers may as well pack it in right now.
Wouldn't it be nice if politicians had to keep *real* daily logs. Like records of whom they met with, were bought a $200 luncheon from, and received $10,000 in 'contributions?'
Too bad the only ones they want to hold accountable are others...
...where can I pick up my Press pass?
I think the mod parent topics are somewhat needed here though, since many of those with mod points are browsing at settings where they may only see the subject headings, and then can investigate to see if they should mod it up to level that would be viewable.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Is that so wrong?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
You're right. Because a newspaper has advertisers and subscribers, it has to protect its reputation as being truthful. Too bad so many of them seem to have forgotten this. Doing real research, as you describe, means not getting the "scoop". Giving comprehensive views makes it hard to sensationalize, i.e., scare, their product (the viewer). Frightened people watch more news, which keeps their customers (the advertisers) coming back for more. It's no surprise that the MSM press doesn't like bloggers - the competition for scare-mongering, highly-biased, and uninformed articles is too stiff when anybody can get in the game. (mostly - there are some exceptions)
You know, kinda like Slashdot.
CBS, CNN, ABC, NBC and the NY Times are not "left wing" at all. They don't even lean towards the true left in any way. Sure, they're not as far to the right as FOX is, but that doesn't mean they can be considered "left".
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Okay, I'm about to voice an unpopular opinion that may get me modded down (so much for free speech, I guess), but I think this kind of troll is actually funny. Just the shear earnestness for trying to get us to read such a complete waste of time amuses me. Well, when it was first done. Is this a repeat (I haven't seen it before)?
No no no - we can't have the press meddling in important matters like presidential elections. The New York Times protected our democracy by stonewalling the Fitzgerald investigation into the White House leaking a CIA/WMD expert's identity. Which otherwise would have splashed lurid details of a White House indictment all over the pages. That might have influenced the election. My thanks to these guardians of liberty, standing up for our freedom from press tyranny. If only they could keep the irresponsible bloggers out of the sensitive business of political reporting, where only the most highly qualified corporations can be trusted to protect us from what we cannot stand to know.
--
make install -not war
Letting a blogger make novel inferences based on someone else's reporting leads to the creation of new material. If the inferences are logical, and provide new material we are all better off. If the blog doesn't provide new material it's not yielding any value and I have no reason to read it. In the long run, creative (but logical) blogs are the ones partisan groups should be afraid of and ironically are also the ones that deserve to be read.
This is great. Now where's my press card?
Prepare yourselves for horde: the bastard children of Jeff Gannon...
I don't watch/read/listen to any of the named "news" sources. I kind of listen to my local new-radio station (or push the button to indy radio) and glance at the local newspaper, but don't really give a shit about any of political stuff.
I was just curious what kind of response I would get. heh. [BTW - "flamebait" was the correct response]
I was modded +5 insightful for a bit, but am dropping fast. That was kind of fun, I might do it more often, if I don't have something more productive to do.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
This seems to be saying that any two newspapers expending the resources necessary to adequately research a given issue or event will produce the same story; that is, except for the Op/Ed pages, I should expect the same content from the Washington Times as from the New York Times.
Somehow, I'm not entirely sure I agree.
Jeff
Where to begin with this...
At least on Fox they have two sides for arguments...
Yeah. It's either wacko righty + even more wacko righty OR wacko righty + diluted inarticulate liberal (ie, Alan Colmes or Bob Beckel). Having straw man liberals to take crap from unfair questions is not showing two sides for the argument. It is not at all about getting to the truth of an issue, but creating the appearance of fairness in order to promote your agenda.
People that use this tend to think that there's nothing wrong with the government funded left-biased NPR, yet get all up in arms about Limbaugh starts shooting his fat mouth off.
You really want to talk about unfair government interference in public broadcasting? You can start by explaining why Rush Limbaugh is on Armed Forces Radio but liberals critical of this administration get pulled.
This is probably a boilerplate troll. Note that the comment is vague enough where it could be talking about anything. Also note that this article wasn't authored by Taco. Also also note that I'm not defending Taco.
Does this mean I can write off my hosting and Movable Type?
In fact, free speech doesn't really apply to journalists. I'm speaking as someone who has worked in journalism for the past ten years. Let's say I hate Microsoft. As a journalist, if I wrote something like "Microsoft is crap and I'm not just saying that because Bill Gates likes to sleep with young boys and small furry animals" I would be in a load of trouble. Sure, it's an obvious joke, but Gates would have me dragged into court in less time than it took Windows98 to flash a BSOD. Now I could argue satire, but unless I got lucky and had a jury full of Mac addicts, I would probably lose.
The example doesn't even need to be that extreme. News organizations have been sued for defamatory stories about corporations, even though everything in their story was accurate. Once upon a time, journalists could rely on the truth as their defense. This is not always the case anymore. You can be sued for defamation even if the facts are on your side, and you will lose if the jury sides against you.
The only so-called journalists who come close to getting away with things like that are tabloids, and they're being sued left and right. They're losing, too.
Add to that the fact that most bloggers aren't affiliated with big corporations or other entities with loads of cash. Most of them are regular people, who couldn't afford to defend themselves in court even if they were 100% accurate with everything they wrote.
Of course, I haven't talked about political speech, which IS what this ruling is all about. However, if the government really starts treating blogs like other journalistic media, it will have to apply the same standards to all of them. At the very least, blogs could eventually be vulnerable to the same legal actions as traditional media.
I guess what worries me the most is this: As a journalist, I am not at all free to say whatever it is I want to say--nor should I be. Some stories are so heavily "lawyered" to avoid lawsuits, they read like a Microsoft EULA. Most of us couldn't afford to have a legal team on retainer to protect ourselves. Even if we could, what kind of "freedom" is that?
This is about money.
This is about money that the parties and candidates spend paying "bloggers" to write about how good they are.
The issue here is not free speach. It has been spun. The issue here is if someone is being paid to write something in a blog, then they should have to make that clear on the blog. There is a difference between an opinion piece and propaganda.
If 500 people all write in support of an issue and it turns out that they have been paid to all support that issue, it isn't really a grass roots support movement, is it?
This boils back down to the same issue as the gov. paying "journalists" to create fake news reports about certain issues.
I have no problem with parties and candidates paying people to write good things about them, I just want to know if what I am reading is someone's opinion or a campaign ad.
There is a difference between being able to say whatever you want, and being able to say whatever you want at whatever volume you want. If everyone speaks at the same volume, everyone's opinion has an equal chance of being heard. But if some people are allowed to speak at a much higher volume than others, the result is a loss of free speech for those who can't turn up their volume.
McCain/Fiengold does not restrict free speech, it RESTORES free speech, by attempting to limit the amount of speech that can be suppressed by being drowning others out.
Dropping the analogy, do we really have free speech if the only people who can be heard are those with millions of dollars to spend? Remember, speech is free as in speech, not free as in beer. It's not really free speech if you buy it - or have to.
Campaign finance laws are not designed to limit free speech, but to assure that the volume of the speech is proportional to the number of people speaking.
paintball
This seems to be saying that any two newspapers expending the resources necessary to adequately research a given issue or event will produce the same story; that is, except for the Op/Ed pages, I should expect the same content from the Washington Times as from the New York Times.
Not really. Obviously there are many ways to examine any story, and there are millions of things you could write about on any given day. What is important and interesting enough to cover is a subjective judgement that depends on the paper's staff. But ideally two papers wouldn't give contradictory facts - at least one of them, if not both, has to be wrong.
GOVERNMENT WHAT!
The second amendment has been, for quite some time, evaluated by the Supreme Court to guarantee the right of states to form a regulated militia for self protection of its people. Ie- your National Guard. It's a state's rights issue, not a personal rights issue. It was never intended to be a guarantee that citizens can posess firearms and you have no such right. Hence the regulations on the gun industry, merchants, and owners. Hence the continual failure of the NRA and other organizations to get gun regulations ruled unconstitutional.
Here's the full text of the second amendment. Note the bit in bold, which the NRA doesn't really like to talk about:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
PS:There's a minor difference between the objectivity of an individual publishing whatever the hell they want to, and the objectivity of a business employing an editorial review process, using employees who have studied journalism. WEBLOGGERS ARE NOT JOURNALISTS.
Please help metamoderate.
Even worse is when you get the guys that just link to articles with a short summary and let people open up in the comments on that particular blog post.
Well, I know you were being a bit facetious, but I figured I'd point out that this is precisely what I appreciate about slashdot, and the other news sites I visit.
I extract the bias out of news stories I hear, not by expecting the summary of the story to be unbiased, but by reading the comments. People who think the bias is unfair will post. By ANDing all the comments above threshold 3 or so, I get a reasonably accurate picture of the truth, and by XORing them (sorta), I get all the different viewpoints on the subject.
"I do wonder if there's a good interface for "moderating" blogs, so that, for example, if one is sponsored by Candidate X in a sneaky way, and someone finds out, it can appear beside the name of the blog."
Actually, what you are suggesting was formerly an FCC rule.
What I am referring to was a rule known as the "Fairness Doctrine" which was repealed in 1987 http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0212-03.htm
This rule required that every political or controversial opinion aired on radio or television, had to be fairly balanced with opposing views. But now that rule is gone, and one-sided political campaigns are now the norm.
That is why we hear many dozens of anti-drug ads daily, for example, with no rebuttal allowed. It's also why we hear one right-wing talk show after another, 24 hours a day, with no opposition; one party, one opinion, marching in lockstep.
Now if we could just get them to run the trains on time, we could forget about the hassle with airport security.
Michael
While on the subject, I saw parts of a documentary-styled fictional doom-scenario program on TV not too long ago. It started with the current situation, and ran into the (near) feature, with all kinds of nastiness happening because of Bush's policy. I don't remember the name of the program or the channel it was on, but I would like to watch the full story. If anyone knows which program I'm talking about, please reply.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Yestrday I could not spell jurnalist, now I are one!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I find it ironic that effectively McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance, sold as trying to restrict the influence of money on campaigns, may ultimately dictate that ONLY people with sufficiently large piles of money to set up traditional media outlets get to speak. Effectively it gags everyone but the most wealthy. Rupert Murdoch (owner of Fox) will always be able to express his opinion through his media holdings under McCain Feingold, but thousands of citizens of more modest means won't be able to join together and express theirs through forming a PAC to advertise within 60 days of an election. Bill Gates could push his views through MSNBC and MSN (please note, I'm not implying that he does), but Glenn Reynolds, law professor, is facing the risk of being gagged.
Anyone here still think McCain Feingold campaign finance is a good idea? Anyone still dispute that money is speech?
Why are you calling a "Draft Advisory Opinion" by a commission a "ruling"?
Forgot to mention I live in the Netherlands; the show may or may not have been aired in other countries recently.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Effectively, libel is dead. If you, as a journalist, publish mean, false things about Bill Gates, a public figure, then you can only be found guilty of libel if it can be proved that you acted with 'actual malice'. See Sullivan v New York Times (1964). Historically, malice has been almost impossible to prove, and people have lost libel cases against parties who were proven to have published falsehoods against them, who were proven to have KNOWN those falshoods were false prior to publication, but by whom malice could not be proven. You are worrying for nothing, you can basically make any statements you would like about a public figure with impunity.
Assuming we can all decide what Journalist means (here: subject to FEC journalist regulations) we now have to decide what makes someone a blogger and indeed what a blog is and how different that is to say.... Homer Simpsons website.
Was Homer a blogger? Maybe he *would* have been if that episde was written now, but if he did now what he did then, would he count as a blogger?
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
The amount of truthfulness and accuracy in commercial newspapers is highly variable. Sometimes it's good, othertimes it _way_ off base. Fact checkers cannot cover what is omitted, and much bias is in the wilful omissions.
That can be true. However, even Fox News is a paragon of ethics and integrity next to the "blogosphere", in which every single person speaks out their ass more than Ace Ventura.
This FEC opinion is a brain dead decision, and serious bloggers should think so too. Either blogs will become a dumping ground for unlimited soft money, seriously diluting the impact of "real" blogs, or they will become subject to campaign finance regulation.
Considering what various blog sites have found out about the "facts" that the news papers have dug up and reported, I wouldn't be so proud about everything that newspapers have done.
BFD. As I have said elsewhere, even Fox News is a paragon of ethics and integrity next to the "blogosphere". Running a real newspaper or broadcasting takes real time, real money, and real infrastructure. So even the worst hack newspaper can't get too carried away or else they will lose crediblity and eventually readership, which they need.
Bloggers don't give a shit about any of that. If a paid blogger gets exposed as a party hack, he can pack up and move to a new blog with a new name in the time it takes him to take a dump.
This little bit of pedantry needs to die. First, it isn't always true: many jurisdictions, in the US and elsewhere, do not distinguish between libel and slander. Others distinguish it, but not on the basis of "written" vs. "spoken" so much as a transience vs. permanence (ie, TV or radio broadcasts might be libel and not slander, even though they are spoken).
Dafamation is probably a better word to use when divorcing it from a jurisdiction.
In soviet Cuba, Communists join YOU!
That so needed to be done.
"Hello 911? I just tried to toast some bread, and the toaster grew an arm and stabbed me in the face!"
Okay, had to add some text here to defeat the lameness filter. Read the subject!
I don 't think so.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
Hopefully, the irony will not be completely lost on him.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
The Post is thought right-wing by people who read Daily Kos, and left-wing by those who read The National Review. An indication that it' fairly centrist.
Best Slashdot Co
I'd much rather deal with 'blog who make no pretense. I'll do my own fact checking rather than rely on unseen gnomes to do it to my satisfaction.
We haven't seen the worst abuses of the Blog yet. I wonder if you'll find the lack of pretense heartening then. The political world really only realized their potential with the Dean bubble, and even he wasn't taking advantage of it especially thoughtfully at first -- he just appealed to a certain type of techie and was smart enough to ride the wave for a bit.
A taste of what's to come happened in the Republican primaries in 2000. When McCain threatened Bush in South Carolina, you had folks like the head of Bob Jones U. sending out e-mails implying (quite blatantly) that McCain's adopted child was the result of some sort of Vietnam-era indiscretion; the appeal to racial fears (McCain's child being of "mixed" descent) couldn't have been more apparent. Those e-mails went out right after Bush's visit to Bob Jones, and there's no conclusion you could reach other than that Rove and company encouraged them. (There were no other Republican contenders of note by that point.) But gee, we can't definitively show that Rove and Bush ordered or controlled the point-to-point communications by the head of Bob Jones -- so no improprieties, right?
The Karl Roves of the world are going to be engaged in all-out blog war over the next handful of election cycles. And the difference with a personal blog, even one that has some prominence, is that there's little pressure on them to be accountable for what they say. With a newspaper they could lose circulation, and the publisher faces a variety pressures to moderate extreme positions based on sponsors and so on. Even Fox News wouldn't report that John McCain thing as news -- though the whole "Doesn't Kerry even look a little French?" idiocy was fairly close on a more benign subject.
It comes down to whether you can accurately judge the intentions of the unseen gnome behnid whatever blog you're reading, doesn't it? Either way it's the judgment of the reader that we have to have faith in... and given the state of our voting public's judgment, one can't help but be a little despondent over that. We can't even get half of them to vote at all, and a significant share of the rest are voting either because they think Bush is the Devil or to defend marriage against the onslaught of terrifying gay people who want to become Boy Scout leaders, for crissakes.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Bloggers tend to link to the work of real reporters, then offer comments, or worse, just repeat rumors as fact. At best, they are information scavengers, feeding on the facts hunted down by others.
Is that different than when real journalists just re-hash everything from a press conference? Or when journalists pick and choose which expert testimony they want to go forward with if they have dissenting testimony?
Don't put journalists on a pedestal. The days where journalists did hard digging to get out the truth seems to be long gone, at least in this country. A blogger has just as much right to put their spin on the facts as the journalists that writes it in a paper.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
This is good for all of us in the blogging community. I actually getting sick Washington clowns determining what our first amendment rights are. Screw them. http://www.illmethinks.com/
Except that the National Guard didn't exist back then -- militias were by definition (and still are) formed directly by the citizenry. And at that time, militias were strictly BYOW (Bring Your Own Weapons), so without the individual right to bear arms, it wouldn't work too well.
Also, the phrase "well regulated" was written in the 18th century sense, which is to say "operating properly", not "managed by the government". The first half of the amendment is a justification for the second half.
BTW, if your interpretation were correct, don't you think it odd that "the people" refers to, well, "people" in every other amendment, but "each individual state" only in the 2nd? The Bill of Rights was specifically designed to outline a few things the government could never, ever do, not to reserve any rights for the government.
As for the journalism thing, I don't care what people choose to call themselves, but I don't recall seeing any qualification in the first amendment about being a journalist. But according to your argument that could be another right which is exercised collectively, correct? We all have the right for a journalist to express our opinions for us. Or do you only apply that reasoning for rights that make you uncomfortable?
Yeah, don't we all wish that Air America had to broadcast the opposing viewpoint 12 solid hours a day, every single day. Oh wait, it's only "right-wing" views that have to be balanced. My bad.
-BrentI guess this is just part of the price of free speech. I do wonder if there's a good interface for "moderating" blogs, so that, for example, if one is sponsored by Candidate X in a sneaky way, and someone finds out, it can appear beside the name of the blog.
I wonder if it's so different. What would happen if the New York Times took some sort of kickbacks from a candidate in return for a slanted "impartial" story? Would there be legal repercussions? Aren't campaigns already legally required to account for where their money is spent, and required to put some sort of disclaimer on any paid message (like "this message was paid for by..." whoever)?
I guess I think bloggers should be considered journalists, but maybe that's just because I don't understand why journalists should have any legal standing above other citizens. Why does some guy have greater rights to his freedom of speech, just because he happens to work for a large media corporation? Sounds pretty fishy. The rights described in the Constitution and amendments aren't supposed to be preserved for an elite few.
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
I can use bold too. It's convenient to pull out bits and pieces of a document to make your point. Just like politicians take each other's statements and parse them to their liking, or how people pull partial sentences and phrases out of the Bible to justify whatever it is they think or want. However, this does not change the facts or the context of the original message. The fact is that the Founders wrote this after winning a war against their own government using THEIR own arms. True, they formed militia, but back then the militia was any able bodied man who could carry a weapon; it was not the National Guard. So, please stick to the facts and keep it in context. It is clear that our Founders wanted us to have the right to bear arms. Sure you can argue that if we rebel we would be breaking the law any way, but this is untrue. Our constitution was written so that patriots could over throw a corrupt government LEGALLY. It's about principles and morals that our Founders held dear.
Do what is right and let the consequence follow
Strange, how when they diagree or are bad mouthing companies they aren't journlists, but when money laundering oops sorry I meant 'campaign' finance/contributions are mentioned, they are........ I leave you to draw your own concusions
you REALY think corruption is a third world issue? (hint, your 'contribution' is my 'commission', is his corruption)
Since when did the government get to decide what is and isn't free speech? It all is. Even if it deals with elections. It's nice that the FEC says that bloggers have free speech, but the fact of the matter is "so does everyone else". Fuck you FEC, for even thinking that you can regulate this sort of thing.
My other car is first.
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey
Anyone else find it disturbing the govenrment assumes control over deciding who gets to criticize it? What part about "Congress shall make no law" aren't they understanding?
Not to mention the web blog collections also might involve, oh, I don't know, people freely assembling to petition the government for a redress of grievances?
Nah, the government saw this coming: Government decides finance laws cover blogs, Supreme Court decimates the government, government look like fools.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Comment A: "I have worked at a newspaper, and spent all day calling people, attending government meetings, doing research and asking more questions before I wrote something."
Comment B: "Bloggers [...] At best, they are information scavengers, feeding on the facts hunted down by others."
Er, um, weren't you just feeding on the facts told to you by the people you called, the meetings you attended, and the answers to questions you asked? You're an info scavenger!
Also, you're confusing "editorial commentary" with "hard news." Most bloggers are editorialists and are, by definition, offering their opinion on the events of the day. They research the issues and present their opinion.
You're just a j-school snob, and a pretty confused one at that.
My wife caught CNN imitating Fox's distortion of the Libby case yesterday. This is not atypical of what we see on CNN. Unlike Fox, CNN sometimes covers the left point of view, but that does not make them left-leaning. Right-wingers generally accuse CNN of being left-wing to make themselves seem more centrist.
Libertarianism is not anarchy. We do not propose that if you want to shoot someone you should do so. My rights end at your nose. That is so long as I am not harming you, you have no business in what I do and should mind your own business. Libertarianism is the farther we can go in the direction of freedom without harming others.
Do I detect sarcasm? The difference between your average citizen and a politician is that one can decide the fate of many, and is voted into a position of trust. Joe Average doesn't take campaign contributions, and even if he did it's not like he can lobby laws into place.
No, it's not useful nor intelligent to track the daily goings-on of average citizens. However, as far as anything related to a position of office, holding politicians accountable and knowing what they are up to definately makes sense, it will just never happen.
See, I didn't say anything that awful at all in my above post and it got modded as a troll. I really thought that it was kind of funny, asses.
What part of "no law" don't you understand? You're being incredibly naive here. The founders of our country are wiser than you will ever be. As soon as you give Congress the ability to shut people up, the people they will shut up are the ones that threaten them. What is the biggest threat to a legislator? They got elected by the current majority, so they have an interest in protecting themselves from minority ideas. Marketplaces provide forums for minority ideas. So, they must shut down markets with Campaign Finance Reform.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I guess this is just part of the price of free speech.
Exactly. Free speech is not free of cost or consequences. It's just that all the alternatives are worse.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The true bias of the networks:
CBS - Westinghouse
Fox - News Corp/Rupert Murdock
CNN - Time-Warner
ABC - Disney
NBC - General Electric (GE)
NY Times - the Sulzberger family
Washington Post - the Graham family
As for low voting, the system makes it so. The Electoral College, incumbency and gerrymandering reduce the utility of voting except in swing areas. Plus the remarkably close actual actions of the parties.
> I know he calls himself a conservative, but at his core, Bill O'Reilly is a self-important media whore.
Well that too, but politically he is a populist. Populists we know here in Louisiana, where Huey Long ruled long ago and his dark shadow still lurks. They tend to be rather dimwitted with a uncanny animal like cunning ability to latch onto the popular zietgiest.
But he certainly doesn't fit into either of of the major Conservative camps. (btw, those two groups are the libertarian leaning small government free market conservatives and the social/moral values conservatives)
Democrat delenda est
"Oh wait, it's only "right-wing" views that have to be balanced."
If that's true, it's because only "right-wing" views exist. The old rule was that all polictical and controversial opinions had to be balanced. Now that the rule is gone, there only seems to be one view.
24 hour a day political harrangues do not constitute the presentation of political views anyway, it is propaganda, pure and simple. In other words, opposing views are censored.
One must wonder exactly who employs and scripts these carbon copy talk shows and their respective hosts.
Please see: http://www.serendipity.li/cda.html for some references to historical censorship in the United States.
Michael
If this was true, you'd easily be able to supply a link to the Court's decision, since all these decisions are available online.
Except, if you try, you'll find yourself unable to locate such a link. Because no such SCOTUS decision exists.
You're very likely thinking of US v Miller (1939), which is what is always referenced in situations like these. Even more likely is that you've never actually read the ruling either.
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
Take your pick:
[A well regulated militia,] subject, noun phrase [being necessary to the security of a free state,] participial phrase, modifies subject [the right of the people to keep and bear arms,] appositive, noun phrase, restates subject [shall not be infringed.] verb phrase
Or:
[(With a) well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,] adverb clause, elliptical clause, expresses cause [the right of the people to keep and bear arms,] subject, noun phrase [shall not be infringed.] verb phrase
Or:
[(Both a) well regulated militia,] compound subject, elliptical clause [being necessary to the security of a free state,] participial phrase, modifies first compound subject [(and) the right of the people to keep and bear arms,] compound subject, elliptical clause, noun phrase [shall not be infringed.] verb phrase
I can't imagine any other interpretations that are remotely feasible. Yours, for instance, simply ignores the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" as extraneous.
At the very most, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" is equivalent to "a well regulated militia". There is no reason to assume one is dependent upon the other.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
> Which only goes to show that there is something seriously wrong
> with the global perspective.
Oh... perhaps not as much as you think. But I guess reasonable people can differ on that one.
However, anybody who would describe the NYT as "far left" _really_ should put down the crackpipe. When making a statement like that, you just show you have NO IDEA what "far left" means, globally or nationally or whatever. Take a few trips to foreign countries, read some foreign papers (now made easy by the interwebs), and most importantly start understanding what extremist political positions (both left and right) really look like the world over.
You never know, you might need that understanding one day...
I am absolutly certain that the founding fathers would not have eliminated freedom of speech for any reason.
Of course they would have. In fact, they did: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors [...] the exclusive Right to their respective Writings". Copyright is just as much of a limit on free speech/press as campaign finance laws are.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Quite a few states have a very explicitly stated right to bear arms.
The WA constitution is especially clear:
SECTION 24 RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.
The first section is also pretty damn clear as to the sentiments of the authors:
SECTION 1 POLITICAL POWER. All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights.
I hate to burst your bubble but this is NOT a democracy and constitution is almost exclusively about minority rights.
This is a Republic. The majority rule is NOT enough to do most things. Many things require a super majority. It isn't enough to have Republicans in the senate to pass a law. You need them in the house, the senate, and the presidency... and even then, democrats can still cause trouble and their laws can be struck down by judges. The inverse is of course also true.
As far as the constitution, a major function of the constitution is to protect the minority. The first amendment is the most obvious example of this. The first amendment is there to protect speech. The type of speech that needs protecting is NOT what the majority as to say, but what the minority as to say. One 'majority' party could not pass a law outlawing the minority party from speaking because the constitution protects the rights of the minority. Any Republic worth its salt protects the rights of its minority with separation of powers and a powerful constitution like document. The US is no exception. The US has some of the strongest separations of powers and an extremely powerful constitution is almost without rival.
What a sense of 'balance': No democratic controls through government, no workplace democracy where the poor can participate. Zip. Just a veneer of accommodation with an unoriginal outsourcing and worker investment scheme underneath. I'd say that is completely lopsided; calling it the product of a plutocratic instinct would be kind.
Of course, your exercise in rationalizing such a proposal through relabeling sure would make it seem fair on the evening news. To stupid people. Translating from doublespeak to plain-spokenness: "See this here outsourcing corporation? It's a 'Union' now. The mandarins at the Federalist Society say so!"
At least communists these days seem to recognize where their ideology had slid into single-minded totalitarianism. Libertarians advocating the "purely capitalist way" have that same sort of zeal, but unfortunately aren't nearly experienced enough to realize this themselves much less admit it to others. Still, market utopia could arrive in New Hampshire one day, right before the Rapture comes to South Carolina (or whatever place it is now).
As for the confusion you feel about the UAW, let me spell it out for you: They work well for Honda, so the common point of failure here is the American executive just as was the case in the 1970s (unless you can point out the union picket lines demanding an end to fuel-efficient cars on the production lines... I didn't think so). IMO America should accelerate this trend of outsourcing CEO and Director positions to other countries; It's very effective.
Now I'm going to check my bank account to see how much I can buy into this moral 'workplace democracy' (e.g. union) that you speak of.
I eat hippies for breakfast. And apparently, you too...
Well, we both could be considered "offtopic", but the average slashmod isn't usually of the highest quality.
> So even unions should operate as a group of shareholders in order to be considered "moral".
It is the only moral way for a large group TO operate. Think about it, you either have a sole owner (i.e. a Company), a Partnership (a small group of owners) or a Corporation (with shareholders). The thing that make it a Union isntead of a normal Corporation is in who owns it. Yes, if GM outsourced all of their labor into a normal Corporation owned by the idiots and idle rich on Wall Street you would have "Meet the New Boss, same as the Old Boss" and workers would be screwed. Which is why I suggested divesting it to the UAW, which is, in theory at least (reality is it is owned by the mob), owned by the workers. The correct term for such an organization is a Co-Op and they have been successfully used for decades.
Now as for the option you appear to prefer, wherein the Government picks a corrupt gang of mobsters with connections to the elected officials making the decision, grants them an absolute monopoly over labor in a particular industry and backs up that monopoly grant with National Guard troops if required. Please explain how that enhances Freedom, advances the interests of the Workers, or for that matter advances any greater good? Advancing the cause of World Socialism isn't a greater good.
> What a sense of 'balance': No democratic controls through government, no workplace democracy where the poor can participate.
Here is where I think you are going off the track. Democratic controls can and do exist without the blessings (I'd say meddling) of Government. A shareholders meeting is the closest thing to pure Democracy yet invented outside of the Ballot Inititive. 50.0001% of shares vote and the Board and CEO can go screw themselves, the majority rules and the motion carries.
And why SHOULD the 'poor' participate in a Union? Almost by definition, once you are in the Union you ain't poor anymore and why should some bum on the street be telling the UAW what is in their best interest?
In my world the workers in the "Labor Co-Op" the UAW would be transformed into would own one share each. No common or preferred stock, because it would dilute to outside control within a generation. They would elect a CEO and Board just like any other Corporation and be subject to Sarbanes-Oxley, etc to ensure accounting transparency. New workers would buy their 'Share' through a financing plan as a payroll deduction and upon termination prior to retirement would be required to sell it (or the portion they had bought so far) back with the proceeds rolling into a tax defered retirement plan. But no fractional ownership since, like a home being financed, even though much of it is financed the asset is still owned, and voted, by the worker. Since pensions are a big part of the deal, retired workers would remain shareholders until death, at which point the current value of their share becomes part of their estate, although it's value would probabably have been drained into their retirement benefits through advanced accounting practices.
Democrat delenda est
Except he's not a conservative. or at least he wasn't. If you're just going to reject the messenger as "conservative" every time, why bother even putting up evidence at all?
Goldberg's point is that EVERY news source has bias. Not just in the way they report, but also in choosing WHAT to report.
Drudge for instance doesn't do any actual reporting at all. He forwards news-wires and "inside information" from actual reporters about what they're going to report. Why then did drudge break the "lewinsky" scandal? Drudge may be baised to the right, but that is irrelevant: he was reporting on a story that other reporters were sitting on, so what does that make them?
At CBS, either Dan Rather was a biased reporter or he was a camera monkey with biased handlers. He aired and continued to air fabricated documents regarding Bush's national guard service. Why didn't he or his handlers do due dilligence to determine the veracity of those documents? The only rational explanation is that they wanted them to be true so much that they believed them without question.
Listen to a white house press conference to get an idea on just how biased the political correspondents are. Half the time they don't actually ask a question, but simply state some long winded half-truth. The rest of the time is devided between questions that sound like they should come from an inquisitor, "Isn't it true that... You eat babies for lunch" and softball questions that the speaker wanted asked.
But conservatives (or at least the ones in MY circles) don't think the media IS biased. We generally think it WAS biased, and that parts of it still are, but now there is far too much media for there to be an overall bias any more. When there were 3 networks and 2 major newspapers, monopolies, collusion, and "accepted practices" could allow a general trend in reporting to exist. But now the cost of entry into the news market is very low and news is becoming a commodity. market forces will dictate that any general trend will tend to reflect the population at large.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
One of the history faculty I provide tech support for has a 1899 vintage spark gap morse code transmitter in his office, along with an AC/DC converter to power it. His roommate got curious, and tested how it affected wireless reception. While in use, the damn thing made wireless reception speeds drop for at least three miles (as far as the idiots tested), and outright go away in the five nearest buildings (which was the reason I interrupted when one was three miles off). And they wondered why they kept having trouble with using the cell phone during this....
They got chewed out by the department chair, the dean, and the university's CIO. They also got a visit from a nice man from the FCC, who cheerfully informed them of how many federal rules they had broken, and politely said that if they ever used a spark gap transmitter again at kilowatt power levels he'd personally strangle them with their own intestines.
The limits on the spectrum are real. The FCC may exceed it's mandate, but it does have a vital reason for existing.