From Portage Daily Register: The First Amendment is very clear in its 45 words that it protects a “free press” along with our rights to religious freedom, free speech and the rights to assemble and petition.
But the founders, in effect, placed a responsibility on that free press in return for being the only profession named in the Bill of Rights: The news media were to be a “watchdog on government,” providing us with the facts, perspective and sometimes contrarian views that help citizens better chart the course of their government.
One of the latest versions of that centuries-old daily duty is playing out in a Wisconsin courtroom, where a coalition of news and freedom of information groups are trying to extract information from closed court records about a previously undisclosed email system involving Milwaukee County officials.
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