Sarah Palin, the media, and the First Amendment

The Constitution’s First Amendment clearly and properly protects the press from government intrusion. However, does the First Amendment allow reporters to ignore laws, or guarantee their access to a citizen’s every move? Ask Sarah Palin.

Palin recently made news for reasons other than her unusual version of Paul Revere’s ride. The controversy centered on her One Nation Tour, whose bus drivers apparently didn’t win any safe driving awards. Palin’s drivers ran red lights, recklessly exceeded speed limits, and changed lanes without signaling.

Ignoring traffic laws isn’t best practice, but it’s hardly unique. Drive a mile on the nation’s highways and you’ll witness similar, or worse, disregard for traffic laws. The question is, why reporters are so familiar with the One Nation Tour’s driving habits? If you answered, “The reporters were doing the same things,” take a gold star.

Reporters committed the same traffic violations for which they criticized Palin’s troupe. Even while describing the experience as “harrowing,” reporters remained quite blind to their own role in creating dangerous situations. Even in today’s warped social climate, where traditional standards are deemed passé, two wrongs still won’t make a right. Reporters are no more immune from traffic laws than are Palin’s bus drivers.

However, reporters excused their part in creating a “rolling menace” as the price required for keeping pace with Palin. Palin’s advisors failed to divulge the tour’s schedule. Lacking the itinerary, reporters had no alternative but to trail the One Nation Tour at all cost. What a load of bull!

The lack of an itinerary provides no excuse for reporters to exacerbate the traffic dangers blamed on Palin. In fact, the media is just as guilty as the Palin entourage, if not more. The media’s zeal to cover Palin is predicated not on idealistic notions of journalistic integrity or public disclosure but on the hope she will commit an embarrassing faux pas. What’s more, the media has no right of access to Sarah Palin’s itinerary.

“But the fourth estate has an obligation to keep tabs on politicians, government figures, and candidates,” journalists may counter. I agree; that’s why the Constitution recognizes the free press. The media should scrutinize everyone who fills, or seeks to fill, public positions. As Thomas Jefferson once said, “When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.”

But Palin isn’t filling a public trust. She is no longer the Republican nominee for Vice President, the Governor of Alaska, or the Mayor of Wasilla. Sarah Palin hasn’t declared her interest in any public office either. She’s a media personality no doubt. But she isn’t a public official whose decisions can directly affect our liberty. Anyone who patronizes her does so voluntarily. Therefore, reporters have as much right to your local barber’s itinerary as they do Sarah Palin’s.

It’s truly amazing the lengths to which the media will go to cover every movement of a woman they routinely label as the world’s biggest idiot. If Sarah Palin is as dumb and irrelevant as the media claims, why cover her tour at all? Why not simply let her go her way in anonymity? Such an approach, if adopted, might cause reporters to miss an opportunity to portray Palin as the total loon they believe her to be. No wonder she didn’t grant journalists access to her itinerary.

Reporting on the whereabouts of celebrities -- and Palin is a celebrity -- isn’t the reason the First Amendment protects the free press. The media’s right to investigate politicians and bureaucrats who directly affect America’s liberty is unquestionable. Should Palin again seek or assume a public trust, she’ll become fair game. Until then the media enjoys no First Amendment access to her agenda and no right of any kind to mimic poor driving habits.