First Affirmative Constructive Speech

 Background
o Licensing journalism would entail the Society for Professional Journalism
setting a requirement for individuals to report the news.
o Many countries have implemented this practice including Italy and
Ecuador
o The Society for Professional Journalism is a private organization for
journalism governed by journalists. It aims to keep a high standard of
reporting through maintaining the truth. It is not a government
organization.
 Thesis
 Fake News
o Licensing journalists would help end the wave of fake news that has
dominated our country.
o Fake news has become a base in some of our politics, defeating the jobs
that journalists are supposed to do.
 Fake news headlines
 Senator Elizabeth Warren preformed nude pagan rituals in
college
 Texas church shooter was an atheist on DNC payroll
 Barron Trump wins national academic award
 Black Lives Matter thugs blocked emergency crews from
reaching hurricane victims
 Illegal immigrants started california fires (591,000 shares)
o According to a Washington Post article, people publish fake headlines
that are spread across the internet that people believe.
Everyday people, even those that have had a college education,
believe these false headlines.

o Unethical reporters that spread fake news would be stopped by being

held to a high standard that a licence would provide.
 According to the National Institute of Justice, there certainty of a
punishment deters one from committing a crime.
So, journalists would be less likely to publish falsehoods if there was a punishment
involved.

o If they were to break the code of ethics, and commit a journalistic crime
such as plagiarism or making things up, there would be serious
consequence, including having their license removed, so they couldn’t
report again.

 Enforce objective journalism

o If journalists were to be licensed, news would be less bias
o People couldn’t blame news organizations as being extremely biased,
because they would have a license that says they aren’t
o According to Ms. Lyons, journalism in the US is private based and stories
vary from publication to publication. It is also entertainment based.
o Some reportes, like Jim acosta, have made themselves a part of the
story, according to his twitter page and NPR.
 o This takes the purpose of journalism away from reporters, and stops
journalists from being objective. Mr. Grossman said that the press is
essential to our democracy. If things continue the way they are,
journalists will become the story instead of reporting on current events.

o Ms Lyons said that The way journalists report alters our image of how we
see the world. It can determine who we vote for, what we think of our
elected officials, and how we perceive the state of our country. If
journalists aren’t giving us an accurate view of our country, just as Mr.
Grossman said, our democracy will be in danger.
o
o Journalists would be forced to write objectively under the threat of losing
their license.
 Examples of extremely biased journalists that have altered our
country are
 Neil Munro, Breitbart journalist publishing incorrect
information about the caravan. He wrote that “Violent
Migrant Border Incident Exact Replay of When Obama
Used Tear Gas at Border”
 This obviously isn’t true because there is no way it can be
exact. This is also corroborated by a Washington Times
article, the Washington times is another conservative
source. It says that Obama used tear gas in his time in
office, but it wasn’t the exact.
 In October 2018, Breitbart got over 86 million hits on their
website. 90% of that traffic was from the United states.
This means that 77,400,000 Americans consumed
Breitbart’s news, which is not factually correct and
extremely biased.
 It is discouraging that so many Americans consumed
factually false news.
 This had an effect on how they voted and see the world
when the facts just aren’t true.
 Journalist that plargixeres, like Stephen glass and Jacyn blair
have already tainted the American people’s idea of what the truth
is. They lied, plagiarized, and acted incredibly unethically. We
cannot let journalists like that be allowed to lie to the American
people and advance their own political agenda. We need a
punishment in place in order to keep the American public
informed.

 Sets up a way to punish clear biased journalists

o Plagiarism

Second Affirmative Constructive Speech

 Thesis: Journalists should be licensed so people won’t have the basis to label
news organizations and reporters as false and also to help reporters and news
organizations in maintaining their integrity among their fanbase and viewers.
 So much of today’s politics is about the news--people question if reporting is
accurate, and journalists can make the news about themselves.
Donald Trump has insulted journalists, even going as far to call them “the enemy
of the people” according to a Vox article.
According to the BBC, many conservative voters who supported Trump believe
that the traditional media is lying to them, just to get liberal candidates to win.
This takes away from what journalists are supposed to do--report on current
events and be a watchdog and keep the government in check. Journalists can’t be a
watchdog if people don’t trust them.
Because the reporters and news organizations would have been certified by the
SPJ and would’ve legally agreed to follow its code of ethics, it would be hard to argue
that their claims or news is false.
Even so, as an editor at The Washington Post put it in an interview for a recently
published academic paper, “Newsrooms and Transparency in the Digital Age”:

Rightly or wrongly, the public does not trust us and so we have to make an effort
to “show” readers that we are professional in the way we do our job … also there’s
definitely the aspect of competition … what we are selling in effect is our credibility
compared to say a blog or a smaller outlet and so being more forthcoming is one way
of doing it.

SPJ’s code of ethics specifically mentions that journalists should “take

responsibility for the accuracy of their work. Verify information before releasing it. Use
original sources whenever possible.”
If reporters or news organizations were to report false information, they would
most likely have their license stripped and they would lose their credibility.
Reporters would have to “identify sources clearly. The public is entitled to as
much information as possible to judge the reliability and motivations of sources” (SPJ
Code of Ethics).
With licensed journalism people can feel assured that journalists are using
relevant and higher quality sources.

First Affirmative Rebuttal Speech (why their point is wrong)

 The first amendment had freedom of the press. Licensed journalism wouldn’t
undermine our first amendment right of freedom of the press.
o SPJ is not a government controlled organization. It is made up of
journalists that support ethical and accurate journalism, therefore the
government wouldn’t be controlling the press.
o The first amendment and accurate reporting hold up democracy. Again,
Mr. Grossman said that ““the press is the essential to our democracy”

 Today our reporting isn’t accurate. With organizations like facebook and twitter
that allow information to be shared with just the click of a button, many people
consume information that is inaccurate.
o 66% of people said that fake news is a problem in this country
o A Pew Research Center study conducted just after the 2016 election
found 64% of adults believe fake news stories cause a great deal of
 confusion and 23% said they had shared fabricated political stories
themselves – sometimes by mistake and sometimes intentionally.
Spreading news stories that aren't true is a growing crisis in this country-- people
believe things that aren’t true, so they perceive our leaders and politics to be
something that they’re not

o If reporting isn’t accurate then the American people are unable to

participate politically democratically honestly, and people will get incorrect
ideas of what the truth really is.
o This allows Journalists to let themselves become part of the story and
advance their own ideas. They no longer act in the best interest of the
people and the truth. We need licensed journalism in order to protect the
first amendment, so that the press can report on whatever they want to
honestly and correctly, we don’t want disinformation to spread among the
American people.

Second Affirmative Rebuttal Speech

Thesis: Licensed journalism wouldn’t undermine our right to free speech.
It would only restrict who could report, not what they would say.
We don’t want to be like one of those other countries like China or Russia
that don’t allow free speech. Just because you aren’t licensed by the SPJ
doesn’t mean you aren’t able to publish an article or your opinion on a
certain topic or issue; it just lets people know that you might be unethical
in your findings or might bend the truth in some way or another. Also, SPJ
wouldn’t be restricting what you say in any way shape or form, they would
only make sure that you stay truthful and moral in their reporting. School
newspaper journalists don’t have to be licensed because they aren’t
professional and only write for the newspaper because they are part of
the club. Fake news organizations or atrocious tabloids would still be able
to say whatever they want to say or talk about, the public would just know
(as a disclaimer) that they might not be completely ethical or moral in their
reporting. Licensing journalists is meant to help the public understand
who is ethical and who is not. It’s not meant to restrict or take away
anybody’s free speech, SPJ is only trying to encourage the media to be
more accurate and principled.