There will be those --
RedState started on this path initially, and now Tapped's
Garance Franke-Ruta has joined in, who believe that the past 48 hours reveals something about the bad about the blogosphere and demonstrates the need for governmental regulation. Writes Franke-Ruta:
I've been criticized by RedStaters and by prominent members of the left blogosphere in recent weeks for saying that there will need to be some clear lines drawn between journalistic activity and online partisan activism in the years ahead, both to preserve electoral campaign transparency and journalistic standards.
Journalists have come in for a lot of attack over the past few years from bloggers on both sides, and especially from the right. I believe this episode with Domenech clearly shows why members of the press, for their own good, need to understand, support, and strengthen the distinction between journalism and online partisan activism.
However, even if you acept that there is such a "distinction between journalism and online partisan activism", and even if Franke-Ruta or others believe that they personally could identify factors which could be used to draw such a line, this isn't possibly something within the competence of the Federal Election Commission (or any other governmental commission) to police. As we explained
in our written comments to the FEC last June:
Neither the First Amendment nor our federal campaign finance laws exist in order to entrench a regime in which only an elite class of speakers possessed rights to speak out on political affairs (and be paid for doing so). The duties of the Federal Election Commission, according to its own website, "are to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections." The FEC does not exist to ensure that a particular type of "privileged status" is given only to one preferred group of "serious" media members. Indeed, the FEC has long extended the media exemption beyond a selected caste of the j-school anointed to include such entities as MTV, and even the National Rifle Association was allowed to broadcast "NRAnews" in 2004 without being deemed to fall outside the restriction. . . .
. . . Nothing in the First Amendment, campaign finance law or the FEC's interpretation thereof suggests that the Freedom of the Press be limited to those who write without expressing opinion or passion.
Indeed, even the FEC itself had tentatively agreed with this viewpoint,
in granting the 'media exception' to the FiredUp websites back in November:
The Commission notes that an entity otherwise eligible for the press exception would not lose its eligibility merely because of a lack of objectivity in a news story, commentary, or editorial, even if the news story, commentary, or editorial expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for Federal office. See First General Counsel's Report, MUR 5440 (CBS Broadcasting, Inc.) ("Even seemingly biased stories or commentary by a press entity can fall within the media exemption.")
If anything, recent events make clear that those of us who write about politics online
do have standards and ethics, and we will enforce them vigorously. Even beyond the Domenech situation, this week also saw further demonstration that when people are paid by campaigns and don't disclose it when blogging about them,
they'll lose netroots support.
If you thought the past two days were vicious, imagine what giving competing bloggers (and readers) access to the FEC complaint system to seek vengeance against their rivals will do. That, however, is precisely what "blogger protection" regulation like HR 4900 would encourage. By allowing the FEC to draw lines between which blogs are "too partisan" and which are "media" (which is what its sponsors want), the regulated and the free, HR 4900 would be an open invitation for political foes to file complaints with the FEC. Instead of bloggers questioning each other via speech, a government agency's full investigatory powers would be brought to bear on where one falls on the journalism - activism continuum. Such open-ended, standardless inquiries would have a profound chilling effect on all of us, and are completely unnecessary.
This week revealed yet again that the best response to "bad speech" is more speech, and we don't need the Sheriff (in the form of the Federal Election Commission) to clean things up. We're doing just fine on our own.
edited to add: Franke-Ruta responds.