Freedom of the press | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    The New York Court of appeals recently quashed a Colorado subpoena that would have forced a New York based reporter to testify in a Colorado court about the source of some information she reported concerning the 7/12/2012 Aurora Colorado theater massacre. The ruling has been greeted with much applause from members of the fourth estate.

    These are people protected by the First Amendment. As I believe was intended, the First Amendment gives them the right to investigate the facts, verify and then report on them.

    Unfortunately, some in the press seem to have adopted the notion that whatever they do is protected (especially if it supports the Anointed One) by the First Amendment..

    They certainly have the right - and many would even say "duty" - to report the facts. They do not, however, by any stretch of the imagination have the right to change them. When quoting a speaker they are obliged to report precisely what was said, no matter what they think might have been meant by the speaker. They can (and should) "slice and dice" whatever the politicos say but the First Amendment does not give them the right to change what people say.

    Too bad it doesn't always work that way.

    For example, here's what was said:

    "If we don't deepen our ports all along the Gulf - places like Charlotte, SC or Savannah, GA or Jacksonville, FL - if we don't do that, those ships are going to go someplace else." So saith the Anointed One on the Jay Leno Show (Aug. 6, 2013) What?? No Teleprompters??

    Here's what the AP turned it into:

    "If we don't deepen our ports all along the Gulf - (and in) places like Charlotte, SC or Savannah, GA or Jacksonville, FL - if we don't do that, those ships are going to go someplace else." (AP "adjustment underlined and shown in bold). They saved him from an F in geography. Would that they had treated "W" so well.

    Unfortunately (for AP) a lot of folks apparently noticed the their "kindness" and didn't think it was such a great idea. On Friday Aug. 9, in furtherance of the discussion, the AP came up with the following: "It wasn't know if the President was suggesting they were. The AP should not have added the phrase in an effort to clarify his statement." For once it is easy to agree with them - at least their second sentence..

    Wasn't it another First Amendment protected group that edited the George Zimmerman 911 call to make it sound as though Mr. Zimmerman was racially profiling the individual about whom he was calling 911. That turned out to not be true either.

    How about a suggestion for a First Amendment change that would seem to be warranted in the face of the despicable behavior we see demonstrated in these two cases. When clear cut political bias or any other unbalanced reporting, can be attributed to one of these so called "news organizations" (as was clearly the case in these two instances), the perpetrators lose their First Amendment protections. That should do two things, both immensely positive. First, it would keep a lot of lawyers busy either prosecuting or defending the "culprits" (instead of "trolling" for "contingency" clients). Or should I say "alleged" culprits?? Second we would stand a chance of having "facts" reported that had not been "massaged" by the reporters or their bosses. It would improve the probability that what we read in our papers and see on the TV news is factual. "Spin" would not be tolerated. The down side of that could well be that jobs held by folks like Jay Carney would no longer be required. Oh, how sad...

    D'ya Think??