by Matt Barr

It's my First Amendment

Eugene Volokh wrote a fine op-ed piece in the NYT last week about the extent to which First Amendment freedom of "the press" applies now to bloggers. A Terance Blacker in The Independent replied huffily (article only available in paid archives now) that an unwelcome byproduct of this will be that "intolerance" and the like will be more likely to get through unfiltered by the people who know better -- i.e., professional journalists: "The approach has a sort of crazed egalitarianism to it, but it also suggests that more than just knowledge flows from professionals and their institutions in the age of the Pro-Am. The checks and balances and disciplines that keep intolerance in check may also go. If that is what the new amateurism brings, you can start the revolution without me."

Ok, deal. But I bring this up because it's always seemed to me that the First Amendment isn't supposed to "protect" or really "apply to" (although that's tougher) journalists or speakers of any sort. Participatory democracy isn't enhanced by the publication or speech of anything, only by its being read or listened to. The First Amendment applies to and protects me, the reader/listener, as a participant in our Republic, by allowing me to hear and be persuaded or dissuaded by as many competing ideas as possible.

And, no, there is no "right to be left alone," the Supreme Court's pro-abortion jurisprudence run amok notwithstanding. But to be a full and capable participant in self government I need to be able to buy the paper I want and click the link I want and tune to the channel I want (on radio or TV) and become fully informed, both about facts and opinions. I would like to see (but won't) journalists get down off their high horse as though the "freedom of the press" gives them some sort of Constitutional mandate to educate the great unwashed. It's my First Amendment, not yours. I need untrammelled access to information and persuasion in order for this country to work; you're not guaranteed a job by the Constitution any more than I am.

My post today is promted by an entry by Jim Lindgren on Volokh, arguing that freedom of the press = freedom to publish. I disagree; it's freedom to read (and hear).

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