This thread topic was brought to mind by two things:
- A thread by @lifelessheap about the optics of local news stations all repeating the same national news headlines passed down to them by their corporate parent company.
- A post by @Tropodan suggesting that Facebook and Youtube be nationalized to prevent selective promotion or coverage based on corporate political motivations.
These two topics seem to me to coalesce into a broader discussion about entitling
positive First Amendment rights to content producers in the arena of journalism and news coverage. While I think that the experience of using Facebook/Youtube is too user-driven to really accommodate an argument for nationalization or First Amendment protections (that is, the users pick the videos they watch and the content providers that they follow), I think the argument for more robust protection against censorship
does exist for local news outlets.
As it stands, most local news stations are owned by larger national corporations. This can result in news anchors and stations being forced to propagate the overtly political rhetoric and agenda of their corporate headquarters, as was once displayed when
hundreds of local stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group read a pre-scripted statement about news bias that clearly tinged of rhetoric espoused by a certain famous politician. Likewise, Sinclair Stations had previously been forced to air short segments by talking heads deriding "snowflakes" and more recently attacking critics of border family separation.
Because the First Amendment only protects citizens from
government infringement on or substitution of speech, if a news station director were to refuse to air these pre-scripted headlines or political rants, they could be fired.
So, should positive First Amendment rights extended to local stations' journalists or managers so that they can resist scripted political rhetoric from their parent company? This would not be natonalizing local news since the government would not be administering the channels, but it would be extending government status and limitation to corporate parent companies and giving speech protections to local news stations.
In effect, individual local news organizations would enjoy First Amendment protections from their parent corporation, which is itself being subject to the same limitations as the government faces.