By Robert Kittle
(COLUMBIA, SC)
The South Carolina lawmaker who introduced a bill to require journalists to register with the state explained his bill Tuesday at a Statehouse news conference. Rep. Mike Pitts, R-Laurens, says he introduced the bill because he’s noticed a slant in some reporting.
“I saw a bias. I saw editorializing instead of reporting. I saw simple regurgitation, embellishment, sensationalization,” he told reporters.
He said a good example is that, after he introduced the bill, the Charleston Post and Courier did a story on it but began the article with a paragraph about his part in the Confederate flag debate last summer, even though that had nothing to do with this bill.
After he filed the bill last week, critics said it was an obviously unconstitutional restriction on the First Amendment freedom of the press.
He says his main concern is what he sees as a bias against the Second Amendment right to bear arms. After talking to some attorneys, he wrote the law requiring journalists to register with the state, go through criminal background checks, and prove their competence. “I took the concealed weapons permitting law of the state of South Carolina and I transposed that to journalists,” he said.
He said the whole point of filing the bill was simple: “To show that there’s a slant and bias against the Second Amendment, not just the Second Amendment but against other portions of the Bill of Rights, and that the media as a whole will only come to the fight when it looks like the First Amendment, and only a portion of the First Amendment, is under attack.”
He says the bill is not a joke, but he knows it doesn’t have a chance of passing this year.
House Majority Leader Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville, says members have the right to file whatever bills they deem appropriate, but he thinks it’s a waste of time to file bills the sponsors know won’t pass. “While it does make a political point, I just think the people are served better by filing bills that actually deal with an issue at hand or one of the state’s problems and not filing bills that are maybe not designed to pass,” he said.
“If it were a frivolous issue and a frivolous bill I would agree with that,” Rep. Pitts said. “I don’t consider education of the public a waste of time.”
