The margin is getting smaller on Daarwyrth’s repeal… you never know.
Next up is Safety and Integrity in Conflict Journalism which is coming from Refugia. I’m leaning against this one because I think it’s pretty naive about modern warfare. Conflict reporting is dominated by embedded journalists who accompany troops, and this proposal ignores them because it defines a conflict journalist as one operating “independently of any belligerent faction”. It requires the military to allow journalists working for news outlets in the enemy country to move freely throughout the conflict area and trust them not to be spies (though they can retaliate if they’re caught spying). And since it defines espionage as clandestine, going into enemy territory and publicly broadcasting what you see wouldn’t count as spying anyway.
Also, banning journalists from having weapons or bodyguards in a war zone seems a little harsh, and there seems to be no recognition of the fact that journalism is inherently likely to be propaganda even if the reporter is not officially connected to the troops of one side.
So I’m open to persuasion, but at a first read I don’t like the look of this much. I tend to read proposals in this way once they’ve been submitted and wish that I’d got my act together enough to make my comments in the drafting process.
