FC: Will campaign finance laws transform think tanks into media orgs?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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From: "Andrew J. Downey" <ajdowney () altavista net>
To: "'declan () well com'" <declan () well com>
Subject: another thought: Who is a journalist?
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 10:50:33 -0400

Declan,

seeing you this morning reminded me of another thought I had re: the
question of who is/what constitutes a journalist.

If McCain-style campaign finance "reform" laws are passed, you'll probably
see a lot of the money going towards funding "research foundations" be
redirected to fund "news organizations" as these laws exempt news.

I think it goes without saying that this will untimately harm the truly
professional journalist's reputation, as news is _supposed_ to be unbiased
whereas "policy think tanks" generally are expected to espouse a specific
viewpoint.




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