A South Carolina lawmaker looking to make a political point about guns and free speech snookered members of the press who took quite seriously his proposal to establish a registry for journalists.
“My visceral reaction isn’t printable but can be summarized thusly: This is a naked attack on the First Amendment — you know, the one that says ‘Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,” the Washington Post’s Callum Borchers said late Tuesday afternoon, referring to a bill introduced by Republican State Rep. Mike Pitts.
“I realize we’re talking about a state legislature here, not Congress, but we’re also talking about one of the nation’s founding principles,” he added.
The executive director of the S.C. Press Association, Bill Rogers, added in equal indignation that the proposed measure was “ridiculous and totally unconstitutional.”
Pitts introduced a bill Tuesday called the “South Carolina Responsible Journalism Registry Law,” which would require that anyone who wanted to work in journalism would need to first meet criteria set by the state. Newsrooms would also have to meet certain requirements set by the state before they could hire reporters.
Pitts said he introduced the measure knowing it had no hope of being passed, the Charleston Post and Courier reported early Tuesday afternoon. In fact, he told the newsgroup, he isn’t actually trying to target the press.
Rather, he said he introduced the bill to make a point about how media treat the Second Amendment and gun laws. Pitts told the Post and Courier that his bill was modeled almost exactly after “concealed weapons permitting law.”
Despite Pitts’ openness about his motivations, and his willingness to speak to the press, some in media rushed to denounce what they believed was an earnest attempt by a lawmaker to curb free speech, without bothering to interview Pitts.
“What Pitts is proposing isn’t just wrong; it simply can’t be done. There’s no stopping people from spreading the news in a digital society — certainly not with some outdated idea for a registry,” the Post’s Borchers wrote.
The president of the New York Press Club also released a statement this week calling on the state lawmaker to end his supposed anti-First Amendment campaign, but he clarified he contacted Pitts first for comment.
“I did reach out to Rep. Pitts, and I did send him a letter respectfully asking him to withdraw his legislation,” Steve Scott told the Washington Examiner’s media desk
“It’s not my concern if a member of the South Carolina House entered a bill as a ruse to ‘punk’ the media,” he added. “My concern is that an elected official publicly stated that he planned to introduce a bill to register and license journalists, with the threat of fines and jail time for violators. I can’t allow that to happen. My organization, the New York Press Club, is a dedicated protector of the First Amendment and journalists’ rights.”
Pitts again clarified his purpose Wednesday, saying on Facebook that his intention was to expose how reporters treat rights differently.
“I filed this legislation as an experiment to make a point about the media and how they only care about the constitution when it comes their portion of the 1st Amendment,” he said on Facebook.
“In doing so, it put the media under the microscope, and they did not like it. … The only portion they care about is freedom of the press. They constantly attack people who follow their Christian beliefs and attempt to portray them as bigots, and they certainly do not like the fact that normal everyday Americans gather to petition the government and air grievances.
“Furthermore, they love to trample on our 2nd Amendment rights to ‘Keep and Bear Arms.’ If they had their way, there would be no 2nd Amendment,” he added.
Borchers published a second article Wednesday explaining that he was taken in by Pitts’ “ruse,” and issued a sort of mea culpa for his original take on the issue.
Neither Borchers nor Rogers responded when asked by the Examiner whether they had contacted Pitts for comment prior to denouncing his bill.
