Should 'catch and kill' be legal?
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2018 3:22 am
'Catch and kill' - the practice of buying the rights to a story and then burying it - has been justified as freedom of speech. But in reality it has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It has everything to do with the power of money to kill freedom of speech. I wonder if it would be possible to craft a law that would make such a practice more difficult. Should the 'rights' of a newspaper to 'own' a story supercede the public's right to know? Someone like David Pecker at AMI could become like J Edgar Hoover, the keeper of the secrets of the right and powerful.