If its free, who cares if its speech or press?

Often we hear journalist and other news media defend their reporting, regardless of its standards, as "free speech." Both the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press are listed in the first article of the Bill of Rights. These freedoms are referenced in light of insuring Federal Government constraint or interference. 

Two questions seem glaring to me that are relevant today in our public discourse: 

Are the freedoms of speech and press a totally unconstrained right to speak and report with no standards or is the right dealing only with protection from government control? 

Why are the implications of freedoms afforded the press NOT covered in freedom of speech? In other words, why do we need both freedoms? 

At its core meaning and application, "freedom" focuses on the lack of constraint or external control. Notice the Bill of Rights does not say, all citizens have the freedom of speech or all press are free to say what they wish. The Constitution is only establishing the right of people and journalists to be free of government control. This does not mean there are no constraints that should be placed on speech and press. It is up to a civil and free society to determine the limits on rights of both speech and journalism. Thus, for speech we have the common standard that no one should "yell fire in a crowded theater" because this act of speech produces risks to others.

Its is less common for us to grasp the boundaries on the freedom of the press, except maybe in areas of direct damage to someone such as libel. There must be some reason the Founding Fathers listed both speech and press as separate freedoms? Maybe it is that there are standards that apply differently. They don't really say, so I get to offer my own perspective. This leads us to the second question, why are freedoms of speech not enough to cover freedom of the press?

First of all, the press represents an organized, even institutionalized, form of speech. Thus, the press is an agent of society as a whole vs simply activities of individual citizens. This gives the press a power not available to ordinary citizens, even if the citizen is famous like an athlete or movie star. 

It appears that the press is listed separately in rights protected from government control so that the power of the press could operate as a legitimate check and balance on the power of government. The question then is what kind of check and balance does the press perform? There are at least two: 1) to advocate opposing views and 2) expose fraud and corruption in the government.

Thus, the Constitution establishes advocacy and exposure as two distinct roles of the press that must be kept from the influence of government. BUT, what happens when the press becomes recognized as a dominant advocate for one power base over others? Are there any risks? One possibility is that the press ceases to have the role of exposing fraud and corruption if that power base has control of government OR the press becomes an "attack dog" to mitigate the power of the opposition that is in charge. 

In the first case society runs the risk that the press becomes an arm of tyranny, letting those in government go unchecked. In the second case the risk is that the press is dismissed and seen as too subjective and biased to fulfill the role of informing society of government shenanigans, losing credibility. 

I know I have rambled a bit and you may still be trying to figure out my point. 

Freedom of speech is designed to exercise the freedom we have been given while freedom of the press is to keep us free.

In essence, when journalism takes on an advocacy role biased to one power base, it is protected as a right to free speech, but quits being perceived as a free press. The Founding Fathers envisioned that journalists would play an objective role in informing society so that government could not operate behind curtains and deceive the public. In doing so, free press would keep society free. 

What we have witnessed in recent times is a mainstream press that has become an advocacy for the progressive, liberal agenda. When the Democrats have control of government, the press looks the other way or rationalizes actions that may work against the freedoms of many in society. This results in a government that is "unchecked", seeds of anarchy. When the Democrats lose control of government, the media works as an "attack dog" to report selected facts and contexts that delegitimize the Republicans in power. 

I know that many could and would argue the above conclusion about the media ties to Democrats. I don't wish to debate that here. We certainly know that the majority of media is NOT an advocate of conservatism and smaller government. Beyond this argument is a compelling picture of our current state, that is that the press has become a "bully" voice and because of free speech, is free from government constraint to be so. BUT in doing so, they can no longer legitimately call themselves the press. While the Republican controlled government cannot silence advocacy, they have the right to deny that the press is being the press and treat the press as an advocacy group. 

I think this explains what we see to day with so much antagonism going both ways between the so-called "press" and the Trump administration. The media revolts at not being treated as "press" all the while the government sees them as advocates for their opponent. 

Its really not hard to ponder why both sides are talking past each other ....