NY Times: Conservative Media Doesn’t Deserve 1st Amendment Protection

All we’ve heard from the liberal idiots at the New York Times and the Washington Post over the past couple of years is how the ascendance of Donald Trump to power draws a dark shadow over America’s freedom of the press. The First Amendment is in danger, they tell their readers on a regular basis. America cannot protect free speech and independent reporting overseas when the president is regularly attacking the press domestically! Democracy dies in darkness, for Trump’s sake!

But it’s funny how their concerns about the strength of the First Amendment dim when it comes to the freedoms of conservative media. Or, in the case of the National Enquirer, not even conservative media per se, but just the kind of media that reports favorably on Trump himself. Just look at this excerpt from a story in the Times this week about the Enquirer and keep in mind this is a “news” story and not an opinion piece.

“Now the tabloid company has been drawn into a sweeping federal investigation of Mr. Cohen’s activities, including efforts to head off potentially damaging stories about Mr. Trump during his run for the White House,” reports the Times. “In one instance, The Enquirer bought but did not publish a story about an alleged extramarital relationship years earlier with the presidential candidate, an unusual decision for a scandal sheet.

“The federal inquiry could pose serious legal implications for the president and his campaign committee. It also presents thorny questions about A.M.I.’s First Amendment protections, and whether its record in supporting Mr. Trump somehow opens the door to scrutiny usually reserved for political organizations,” they conclude.

Thorny questions about the company’s First Amendment protections? Because they’ve withheld some stories that might be damaging to President Trump? Does the New York Times really want to go there? Do they really want to start talking about stories withheld from publication because they might be damaging to, say, Hillary Clinton? Or Barack Obama? Or Elizabeth Warren? Or Harvey Weinstein? No, we don’t think the Times really meant to take that stance.

Near the end of the piece, the Times makes a vague comment about how, yeah, we’re all for press freedom, but that doesn’t extend to criminality. Well, we’ll just have to see about all of that. The fact is, we find it pretty convenient that the Times is so ready to strip a tabloid of its constitutional protections when it happens to support the President of the United States. So ready to do that, and yet so ready to cry foul whenever Trump mocks their (failing) newspaper in a tweet. But hey, we’re sure their readers are drinking up the double standard like it’s a fine wine.