The National Union of Journalists, a trade union for journalists in Britain and Ireland and which as 35,000 members, is apparently calling for state regulation of journalists as a means to improve pay, working conditions and the general esteem with which the public holds journalist.
If you think a healthy, vibrant press is vital for a healthy, vibrant democracy — and I do — then this call by the NUJ is a really, really, really bad idea.
Journalism is all about free speech. When you regulate who may or may not participate in that pursuit you are, by definition, curtailing free speech. Nation states that are afraid of free speech — China, North Korea, Soviet Russia and Italy (!) apparently — regulate and license journalists because they know that kind of regulation is a teriffic way for the government to control speech and censor debate.
If they ever ask, just say no the NUJ’s bonehead idea.