All the News That the Government Sees Fit to Print

by David Kramer, LRC Blog
Jun. 01, 2010

Michigan lawmaker Bruce Patterson wants to license news reporters. LICENSE NEWS REPORTERS!!! Why? Because the lawmaker wants to insure “quality” (Whose subjective standard of quality, may I ask, Mr. Patterson?) like the government does with hairdressers (Gee, I just got a lousy $20 haircut from an unlicensed hairdresser. I guess this calls for a multi-million dollar lawsuit--or I perhaps could just not patronize that hairdresser again.), auto mechanics (Ha!), and plumbers.

"Legitimate media sources are critically important to our government," he said. [TRANSLATION: Legitimate media sources that the government can control are critically important to our government.]

Patterson told FoxNews.com:

…that some reporters covering state politics don't know what they're talking about [As opposed to all of the economic legislation that has been forced upon the citizens of the United States by politicians who don't know what they're talking about.] and they're working for publications he's never heard of [Do you think Patterson has heard of publications such as The Mises Review or The Free Market? Uh-oh.], so he wants to install a process that'll help him and the general public figure out which reporters to trust.

I guess the “quality” we get from “legitimate” news sources such as The New York Slimes (Remember those Weapons of Mass Deception Destruction they reported on?) and The War Street Journal (Remember all of those articles a few years back warning of the coming recession we’re in?) will be Patterson’s standards of excellence for determining government requirements for a license to report the news in Michigan.

It will be interesting to see the sheeple’s reaction to this Stalin-esque legislation if it should actually pass.

UPDATE: Speaking of “As opposed to all of the economic legislation that has been forced upon the citizens of the United States by politicians who don't know what they're talking about,” John Seiler sent this about Patterson and his economically-ignorant Michigan politician colleagues.