From: Secret Squirrel <nobody@secret.squirrel.owl.de>
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 21:06:58 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Do reporters have special rights the rest of us don't have?
Message-ID: <19970614125040.32767.qmail@squirrel.owl.de>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Tim May wrote:
> (I have no problems with private agents, e.g., Microsoft or
> whatever, limiting contacts to the "main" reporters. It's their
> property. If they grant interviews to Declan, Brock, John, Steve,
> etc., and not to me, I cannot claim my "rights" were violated.
> Government functions are another matter, and I would generally favor
> letting anyone claiming to be a reporter in to government press
> conferences...to do anything else is to give licensing and
> credentials to speech, which the government should have no right to
> do. If they need to hold press conferences in RFK Stadium, so be
> it.)

Are you proposing the President can't choose who he meets?  Whether
such a meeting is called a "press conference" is irrelevant.

The legitimization of reporters through the use of "press credentials"
by the government can only occur when people operating the news
channels and their customers allow it to happen.

Panther Modern