Hog-Tying Freedom of the Press

I frequently criticize the MSM for its obsession with trivial matters (such as the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby) and its tendency to sensationalize even the most mundane of events.

But I had to laugh at the recent musings of certain lefties when it comes to "fixing" the media.

This train of thought started with this silly comment thread at Common Sense Political Thought, and continued with the subject of this post by Dana at the same site.

The author of the post that is the subject of Dana's post is Rob Kall, at a deliciously moonbatty site called OpEdNews.com.

The complaints by the left boil down to this: MSM doesn't cover stuff we think is important and spends way too much time on stuff we don't think is important.

Their solution? Put the government in charge of it!

I'm having a really hard time squaring this government regulation of the press with the First Amendment. But leave that aside for a moment. Who would get to decide what sort of news should be reported, how much, and why? Are we really prepared to create a Ministry of Truth to make these determinations and what would that ministry look like (if not 1984)?

I find it particularly interesting that the moonbats who believe the most incredible crap are the ones who want the government to decide what sorts of news are fit to print or air. These same people believe the government was responsible for 9/11, yet they trust the government to produce the truth? These same people think the government routinely lies, breaks the law, imprisons innocents, and performs other despicable (not to mention unconstitutional) things, yet they honestly believe a Ministry of Truth would solve Leftist problems with the news?

Look, I know it is irritating that 24-hour cable news networks don't produce more news than they do. The truth is, though, that producing news costs money. If you want lots of fresh news 24 hours a day, you would have to hire a huge number of reporters and editors, and they don't come cheap. It's much cheaper to repeat a story every hour for six hours than to produce six stories in the same period.

I know this sounds cynical, but it is the way it is. Many all news formats have been tried and most of them have failed. The reason is that producing 24 hours of news can be expensive.