Time to Control Dangerous Assault Journalists
By Alan Gottlieb
Seventeen confirmed dead and hundreds injured. This was not the work of
some stereotypical lunatic with a gun, but the handiwork of a careless
reporter who must have graduated from the Dan Rather School of
investigative journalism.
Now that Newsweek has lived up to the high standard of prevarication
established by Jayson Blair at the New York Times and by Janet Cooke at
Newsweek's parent company, the Washington Post, maybe it's time to
establish the kind of ground rules for reporters that the anti-gun press
has advocated for American gun owners, who never lied, or caused harm to
anybody.
Why isn't Sarah Brady screaming for a clampdown on "assault journalism?"
Why can't we demand some "common sense" controls on out-of-control
reporters who go off half-cocked faster than a broken musket?
Where's Chuck Schumer? He's good at dancing in the blood of gunshot
victims to push his gun control agenda. Why isn't he just as eager to
capitalize on the mayhem of riots that resulted from Newsweek's bogus
story about the Guantanamo Bay flush that never happened? Schumer's
never been one to hide from media exposure. This is the first time he's
missed the opportunity to trample his way to the television camera.
With tongue-in-cheek, let's apply the same logic to exercising the First
Amendment that the mainstream press has accepted as reasonable when
applied to those exercising the Second Amendment. It might be shocking
to members of the press just how eagerly American firearms owners would
seriously embrace this concept of karma.
Henceforth, the First Amendment will be interpreted to apply only to
state-owned newspapers. When the First Amendment was written, nobody
envisioned computers, high speed presses, and the internet or television
and radio news. There is no individual right to become a reporter,
especially a freelance journalist. Only reporters employed by
state-owned print media outlets have a legitimate reason to own laptops
or personal home computers.
Journalists should be registered and required to pass a course in safe
news writing before they can own, or have access to, a keyboard. They
should need a special permit to carry a notebook and pen, and a
mandatory background check before carrying a concealed tape recorder or
hidden camera.
Newsmen should be limited to stories containing no more than ten
paragraphs. All small one- or two-paragraph news shorts, like the one in
Newsweek that caused all the trouble, should be banned because they are
so easily hidden within larger news columns.
America must stop importing foreign news, because it might be dangerous
if it fell into the wrong hands. If news is not clearly sports-related,
the average American should not be allowed to read it or listen to it.
All personal computers, laptops and word processors must be registered
because of their ability to rapid-fire words into print and onto the
internet indiscriminately. Journalists who currently own computers will
be able to keep them, but they won't be able to sell them to other
reporters unless the buyers go through federally-licensed computer
retailers, and pass a background check to make sure they haven't libeled
anyone or ever filed an erroneous story.
"Civilian journalists" don't need laptops or personal computers. Manual
typewriters are acceptable because of their slower rate of word
production. Before a journalist can possess a typewriter he or she
purchases, they must submit to a mandatory background check that can
take up to three days.
If a reporter carelessly writes a story that falls into the wrong hands
and causes the death of another person, that reporter should face
criminal prosecution.
Reporters may not carry notebooks, tape recorders, typewriters or
laptops aboard commercial aircraft. All such devices must be transported
in checked baggage.
All news must be delayed from broadcast or print for a period of three
days, allowing time for reporters and editors to "cool off."
Journalists would come unhinged if such measures were ever seriously
considered, much less enacted. But this is exactly the kind of legal
mine field through which gun owners must now tread; a regulatory
nightmare the press has endorsed.
Newsweek's carelessness has killed more people than any law-abiding gun
owner, outside of battlefield service in the armed forces.
What's good for gun owners should also be good for the press.
Considering recent events, to argue otherwise is monumental hypocrisy.
From: the Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org)
--
Will Brink @ http://www.brinkzone.com/