Yes there are licenses to ensure safety and compliance for plumbers, electricians, and hair stylists. And if I understand what I'm reading, some people here calling for similar "licensing" for anyone who wants to report the "news". While I'm in favor of the former, I am strictly and uncompromisingly against the latter.
Freedom of the press, the freedom to report on the news, opine on the news, and editorialize the news, in my mind is sacrosanct. "Incorrectly" reporting the news is not false advertising, and I would strongly hope that any attempt to license, monitor, or censor any news outlets (no matter how ragtag or unpopular) would be shot down hard by the 1st, barring the well established limits around direct incitement of violence.
Ingredient lists are a public safety measure. People with food allergies eat a mislabeled product and they die. People with an allergy to Fox news can change the channel and listen to CNN if they so choose. There isn't a 1st amendment right to sell someone a product (like a can of soda) and lie to them about what is in it.
I can debate the merits of any article from the New York Times, the Washington Post, or even Breitbart. I can debate how much an article in any of those publications seek to neutrally inform, or seeks to present a specific viewpoint, or seeks to outright persuade its readers of what to think. Reasonable people will disagree emphatically in such a debate.
But no reasonable person can disagree that the can of Coke Zero sitting next to me contains; Carbonated water, caramel color, phosphoric acid, aspartame, potassium benzoate, natural flavors, potassium citrate, acesulfame potassium, and caffeine.
Watch 5 minutes of news coverage of Comey's book on each of the major networks. Now tell me which were news and which were editorial. Spoiler alert: It's a rorschach test. Even objective news is not free of characterization and choice of diction which colors the facts being reported. Newsrooms have editors for a reason. Even the choice of which facts to report and which not is an editorial decision which must be made when reporting the news.
So I submit there can be no news that is entirely free and devoid of editorial. To report on Comey's book, you would have to sit in front of the camera and read it from cover to cover in a monotone voice without inflection or facial tic. And even that itself would be a type of performance art with its own editorial value.
For all the claims that fake news is "killing democracy" or "dangerous to democracy" I think the one thing that truly can kill a democracy is violating the 1st amendment and trying to establish some government censor of newscasts, podcasts, books, or vlogs because you think the message is wrong, misleading, dangerous, offensive, propaganda.
