The Associated Press reports that Howard Dean, the president of the Democratic Party, believes voters would be better off if reporters were banned from all-candidates meetings and unable, as result, to tell voters what candidates actually said.
“The media has been reduced to info-tainment,” Dean said. “Info-tainment sells; the problem is they reach the lowest common denominator instead of forcing a little education down our throats, which we are probably in need of from time to time.”
National Press Club President Jerry Zremski lashed out at Dean for suggesting barring the media.
“Has Dean read the First Amendment? The Founding Fathers knew that a free press is central to the free flow of information to the citizenry — and that the free flow of information is the very foundation of a democracy. Repressing media is a tactic one expects from totalitarian regimes, not democracies,” Zremski said.
Tip of the toque to Deb Jones at Canadian Journalist.