Senator Lindsey Graham — who seems to be quoted about every topic under the sun — misspoke earlier this week. In discussing a “shield law ” that Congress is considering in the wake of the Department of Justice’s aggressive pursuit of journalist email and other news-gathering information, Graham asked whether “any blogger out there saying anything” deserves First Amendment protection. He later corrected himself and said that every blogger enjoys freedom of speech.
Of course, that’s right. Every American enjoys freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment, and there isn’t any exclusion for bloggers. Graham’s misstep, though, is one of those instances where a politician’s statement reveals a deeper truth about their actual beliefs. Graham is an old-line politician who is struggling with the modern world, where the traditional daily newspapers and nightly network broadcasts that he grew up with are fighting a losing battle to hold on to an audience, and any person with a computer and a camera can contribute to the national dialogue about issues and events. At the root of his comments are these core questions: how do we deal with these new guys, and who are they, really?
Bloggers must be a pain for politicians. The traditional methods of controlling the media — having a press secretary who interacts with those pesky reporters and answers their questions, wining and dining the big-time reporters and throwing them a scoop now and then to stay on their good side — just don’t work with bloggers. There are too many of them, and they don’t go to press conferences or call press secretaries for comments. They tend to be out in the real world, reacting to what politicians are actually saying, observing the politician actually interacting with the citizenry, and (often) reading the bills and committee reports to try to understand what the politicians are actually doing. The teeming mass of bloggers makes political manipulation of the press a lot harder.
That doesn’t mean that bloggers are any better or purer than traditional reporters — just different. Most bloggers come at the issues from a clear ideological bent, and their stuff should be read and weighed with that reality in mind. Their postings aren’t edited by professionals or subjected to the fact-checking and publication standards that exist at good daily newspapers. But there is no denying that bloggers — awkward stepchildren of the modern world that they are — have made, and increasingly are making, significant contributions to the national dialogue about the issues of the day.
I’m glad Senator Graham corrected his misstatement and recognized what should be undeniable: bloggers, like all citizens, are protected by the First Amendment. It’s just a bit troubling when one of our elected leaders makes such a fundamental blunder in the first place.
Webner House 