The Constitution protected us from government censorship, it wasn’t a media entitlement.
The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights was a direct response to British censorship and suppression of free speech. The Framers did not anticipate modern media or press conferences which did not exist. The image of reporters crowding around a politician and shouting questions would be a matter for later days. What the First Amendment was concerned with was preventing the government from shutting down the press.
And yet during the first term of the Trump administration, there were court cases arguing that reporters, even those who were disruptive and violent, could not have their press passes suspended. Playboy was somehow entitled to attend press conferences. (The Biden administration changed its mind on this and many other things when it had to cope with a screwy African reporter disrupting press conferences.)
Now the Trump administration is testing this with the AP. Its contention that there’s no constitutional right to media access is indisputably true, but we live in a bonkers legal environment where a judge ruled that blocking critics on Twitter is a First Amendment violation.
Historically, reporters used to hang out in a White House walkaway to buttonhole public figures. The current briefing room used to be the White House pool. What’s being treated as sacrosanct was always impromptu.
The Left dismantled the most meaningful parts of the First Amendment, allowing the government to tell private companies to censor opposing media outlets, sidelining the entire purpose of Freedom of the Press, while insisting that their favored media outlets have some constitutional right to be at press conferences.
If the right of media access is an actual right then does every media outlet have an equal right to be at private interviews? If Trump talks to Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, does the AP also have a constitutional right to be there?
The Founding Fathers were concerned with negative rights, preventing government from taking away things from us, whereas modern leftists are obsessed with creating entitlements while taking away our rights.
The Constitution protected us from government censorship, it wasn’t a media entitlement.
Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield
