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Free press isn't free under White House's onerous rules (Editorial)
Muzzling the press is chapter one in the authoritarian ruler's playbook. By the Founders' design, the president of the United States is not a king or dictator. He doesn't control the media, or get to decide which reporters are assigned to cover him.
A free press isn't free if the government imposes rules on what reporters can ask and how they must ask it. That violates the First Amendment. Period.
Banning reporters from asking follow-up questions or challenging the president's statements, under threat of taking away their access to the White House, hobbles the watchdog function of the media. White House reporters will be looking over their shoulders, calibrating the consequences, every time they ask tough questions. Meanwhile, the president will be able to dodge accountability and lie to the American people with even more impunity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 23 2018, @09:51PM (1 child)
So by your own logic, ISPs and service providers who refuse to host sites of alt-right extremists or con-artists like Alex Jones are perfectly entitled to do so, as are the likes of Facebook, Twitter, etc, who decide to delete the accounts of such people, and conservatives who complain about this and claim that their "freedom of speech is being suppressed by the evil liberals" are just snowflakes themselves.
Or is it only liberals who complain that are snowflakes ?
(Score: 1) by ChrisMaple on Monday November 26 2018, @12:33AM
Yes, service providers should be free to reject anyone they desire. And customers should be free to complain and bring public pressure when their ISP bans someone.
The major complaint by conservatives has been that popular social media sites have been shutting down the accounts of mild conservatives and quietly deleting conservative posts.