Raking Muck in the Third Millenium

I used to have a sign over my desk in a newspaper office long ago, in Gothic script it read Rake Some Muck Today. In today's world, raking muck is something of a lost art. I may not be able to singlehandedly bring it back, but this is a start.

07 April 2009

If it's Tuesday, we must be in. . . .

In much of the world, publishers need a license to publish.
Think about that.
A license.
One of the laws the Framers discarded when they wrote our amazing Constitution was the one that licensed publishers. They understood the necessity for free speech and a free press, which means, they appreciated dissent.
Of course, it was a little easier for them to appreciate dissent, since they were professional dissenters themselves.
A country formed from a revolution may belikely to be a little more free, but that doesn't give us the right to be complacent about it.
Free speech is the right from which all other rights are derived.
If that matters as much as it should and, especially, if you teach others for whom it should matter, read Charles Glasser Jr.'s International Media Law. The book describes the variations of law in many countries of the world, but the bottom line is, this is the best place to be a member of the press.
Even now.

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