Who Is a Journalist? What Is the Press?

Who is a journalist? What is the press? Recently we made a family trip to Washington, D.C. including to the Newseum, 250,000 square feet devoted to the history of news gathering. An impressive tribute to the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights resides there.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

We should recognize that the right of assembly came under direct attack during the "Occupy" movement. The UC Davis "pepper spray incident" stood out as one egregious example of First Amendment assembly rights under siege.

Red Sox owner John Henry has recently purchased The Boston Globe to expand his media empire. Rumors of a name change to The Boston Red Sox Globe may be unfounded, but can we expect reporting and columns about the 'magical' Red Sox to adopt a permanently less objective tone? Dan Shaughnessy began his column today facetiously "reminding all of you that John Henry's greatness has been vastly underappreciated." I doubt Henry's purchase threatens the Bill of Rights, but we'll find out whether we get a Red Sox "Bill of Goods."

The bigger questions are "who is a journalist" and what realms constitute "the press"? Internet sites like Patch serve as local news aggregators, and bloggers hang out our journalistic shingle. Patch puts out a disclaimer that bloggers are responsible for their content. To what extent are social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In also protected (to some degree) constitutionally? We have seen authoritarian governments around the world shut down the broad conversation available via the Internet when citizens challenge their policies.

As a society, if we value our rights, we should seek both to understand them and have them clearly defended and logically defined.