Journalists to ban Fake News phrase

Journalists want the government to force President Donald John Trump to stop calling them Fake News.

Waah! They cannot handle any criticism, and so they demand Silence!

The story as reported by BizPac Review, "A Florida chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is hoping to trademark the term Fake News.

"As ridiculous as that may sound, Teen Vogue reporter Emily Bloch explained that her chapter of the organization believes 'a joke sometimes hits harder than the truth.'

"'So yes, this is satire. It’s a joke,' Bloch wrote. 'But it’s a joke with a point, and as any student of public discourse will tell you, a joke sometimes hits harder than the truth. And if anyone accuses us of trolling the president, well, nothing else seems to work with him, so what do we have to lose?'

"Covering education and government for the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, Fla., Bloch bemoaned that 'being a journalist right now is scary.'

"She also worries that the general public may not know 'that journalists follow ethical codes and face losing our jobs and getting blacklisted by the industry if we so much as think about presenting Fake News.'"

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Bloch is a blockhead.

There is no ethical code for journalists. They take no oath (unlike a president). They carry no license. They face no penalty for errors. The Supreme Court struck down the libel laws a half century ago in Sullivan v. New York Times, which means journalistic malpractice goes unpunished and is even encouraged as a means of advancing a political or corporate agenda.

Our only recourse is to speak out against their abuses.

Now a group of them want to silence us.

The etymology of Fake News includes Barack Obama invoking it after the election to discredit social media outlets that provide competition to his friends in the mainstream media. President Donald John Trump wrested a reversal of that phrase, turning it against the lies and the liars in the media.

The group sent a cease and desist letter to the president but called it a parody. I am not really sure that they meant it as a joke or that they even know what a parody is because they really are seeking a federal trademark to prevent him from saying Fake News to criticize them.

It is as if everything they wrongly accuse the president of doing to them is what they want to do to him. In the old days, the Society of Professional Journalists stood up for civil rights and the First Amendment. That seems like a lifetime ago.