The Post and Courier of Charleston reported Tuesday afternoon that state Rep. Mike Pitts (R) had introduced a bill called the “South Carolina Responsible Journalism Registry Law.” Reporter Gavin Jackson posted a summary of the bill — which includes “fines and criminal penalties for violation of the chapter” — on Twitter, but wrote that the full text was not yet available.

The Post and Courier reported that “the bill would create requirements for people wanting to work as a journalist for a media outlet and also before that outlet could hire anyone for a reporting position.” It was not immediately clear what kinds of restrictions might apply to journalists based in other states who might be assigned to cover isolated news events in South Carolina, such as debates and campaign rallies. After Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina is next on the Republican primary calendar (the Democratic vote is a week later), making it an important, early-voting state for the presidential candidates and the reporters who cover them.

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Oh, and we should note here that this particular lawmaker was one of relatively few to stand in defense of keeping the Confederate flag on statehouse grounds after even many of the state's Republicans voted to remove it. His campaign finances have also, more recently, been probed as part of a Post and Courier examination.

So many thoughts here:

My visceral reaction isn’t printable but can be summarized thusly: This is a naked attack on the First Amendment — you know, the one that says “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” I realize we’re talking about a state legislature here, not Congress, but we’re also talking about one of the nation’s founding principles.

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That aside, this kind of law would be completely unworkable. Look, there’s plenty of media garbage out there, but everyone has a different definition of what garbage is. Does anyone want a bunch of self-interested government officials setting the standard?

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We register surgeons and pilots and teachers and people in many, many other professions. You can make a coherent case that journalism is a very important profession too, but there’s a reason why journalists have reputations, instead of licenses. They have a fundamental American right to share information, and their audiences have a right to decide whether to believe it or dismiss it. By contrast, no one is entitled to remove brain tumors, fly airplanes or teach third-graders.

There’s also a practical problem: How on Earth would South Carolina’s secretary of state, charged with maintaining the registry, do its job here, anyway? Journalists can’t even define who is a journalist anymore, what with all the bloggers and tweeters posting the kind of information and opinion that used to come only from a highly institutionalized press. Good luck to Pitts when it comes to crafting a legal definition of journalism.