SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the first-we-need-an-ethics-board-for-politicians dept.
Georgia Republicans Push for State 'Journalism Ethics Board':
Six Republican state representatives in Georgia have moved to create an "ethics board" for journalists that would require news organizations to provide copies of pictures and audio and video recordings of interviews to subjects who request them or risk civil penalty.
The cost of meeting those requests would be paid by the news organizations.
The proposed legislation, House Bill 734, titled the "Ethics in Journalism Act," was sponsored Tuesday by Rep. Andy Welch, who represents the city of McDonough.
The bill would create a board of media professionals and academics that would produce"a canon of ethics" and "develop a voluntary accreditation process in journalism ethics," which would also allow for the investigation and sanctioning of journalists.
This bill isn't really about local news publishers (although they would be censored too) this is about censoring CNN which is headquartered in Atlanta.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06 2019, @04:17PM
The suggested idea has two major problems. Firstly being that it's blatantly unconstitutional to have the government involved in journalism. One of the reasons for the 1st amendment is to ensure that the media is protected against the whims of politicians that may not like what the stories say.
The other major problem here is that the suggestion is purely intended as a way of curtailing reports about all the horrible things that they're doing. Not out of any honest concern for the well being of the public.
That being said, journalists have some pretty amazing lapses in ethical behavior lately. You don't much here about the complete lack of evidence for chemical weapons being used by Syria and the whole idea makes no sense as the government has been winning. It's mostly the US and Al Qaeda that are trying to keep things going. Likewise, there's been little coverage of the Democrats rigging their own primary so that the networks can cover all that ridiculous Russia colluding with Trump stuff. There's a ton of problems with Trump's candidacy that deserve looking into and prosecution, but that's not one of them. Had the Democrats allowed the voters to decide whom the candidate should be, Trump likely would have lost.