http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=20512

I thought that this article highlighted a very real issue: if the First Amendment grants the freedom of both speech and press, how can any institution [in this case, political] draw a line over which journalists should not cross? Despite the fact that the cartoon, published in LareDOS, and alternative newspaper, cast Mayor Salinas in a poor light, it is the right of the paper to present him in this fashion. However, should the publication be allowed to "criticize" him for the role he had in approving "the lease or sale of city airport property for a mall on land that includes the Casa Blanca wetland"? Having not seen the original article, it's easy for me to say that the journalists who wrote it should have played the part of a neutral party, rather than criticizing the mayor. Regardless of the role that the paper played, it never should have been removed from city hall; by removing the publication, Mayor Salinas was effectively removing the rights of the First Amendment.

On page two of our reading, Kovach and Rosentiel write that "We need news to live our lives...protect ourselves... [and] identify friends and enemies." When a publication is pulled from City Hall, what do the citizens have to rely on? Mayor Salinas clearly violated the First Amendment when he was caught on video removing the papers; no matter how badly he was presented in the article, his own actions dug him into an even deeper ditch.

Along the same line, I think it's very important to ask what happens when news is distorted? Can citizens really rely on news to draw lines between friends and enemies? Likewise, what happens when news cannot be reported for safety reasons [i.e. military tactics, etc.] Does this "half news" really provide citizens with enough information to draw real conclusions about who their friends and foes should be? In relation to LareDOS, news presented with a liberal/conservative bias obviously shapes opinions differently. With all of these factors, I think it's important to think about how we as journalists can be counted on to be trustworthy.