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Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is a strong defender of First Amendment rights when he sits on the court; not so much, perhaps, when he's out from behind the bench.

The New York Times reports that the student newspaper at a private school in Manhattan was unable to publish a timely account of a talk Kennedy gave to high school students in October "due to numerous publication constraints." The constraints proved to be a request by Kennedy's office to approve the story before it ran to make sure that quotes attributed to him were accurate.

That's not real-world journalism in a society with a free press. Yes, journalists want their stories to be accurate. Fact-checking is a routine part of reporting and editing. But handing a story over to a source for editing is a constraint on journalists' ability to report accurately -- not what someone wished he had said, or meant to say, but actually said.

The justice declined an interview, so it's not clear whether he knew of the request by his office -- which, by the way, returned the story, with quotations "tidied up," for later publication.

And would a real news-gathering organization let him? John Stossel, a former reporter for ABC News, made his name as an environmental contrarian, attempting to debunk claims of public health dangers from toxic hazards such as dioxin.

He's always been a questionable journalist, quick to depend almost solely on biased sources with clear interests in obfuscation.

Then he moved to Fox News, and shed all pretense of objectivity. According to Talking Points Memo, Stossel is participating in anti-health care reform rallies. You'd think Fox might frown on one of its reporters - as opposed to one of its opinionators - inserting himself into a story in such a way. But Fox hasn't even responded to TPM's requests for comment.

Tomorrow we'll also laud the life of Frank Batten Sr., founder of this newspaper's parent company, who died early today at age 82.

David Carr's Media Decoder blog at The New York Times brings us the news of a 24-year-old business school grad whose plan to reverse the fortunes of the newspaper industry is ... start a p.m. newspaper. Um. Hmm.

The afternoon World-News already had been combined with the morning Roanoke Times when I first set foot in the building here on Campbell Avenue, but a p.m. edition of The Roanoke Times & World-News remained in the weekday cycle for Roanoke Valley subscribers. A few years farther down a road of declining circulation, though, the newspaper killed it off.

Toward the end, I recall from my newsroom days, we gave it a push. No more scrambling for enterprise stories and news update to give the p.m. something fresh. Diehard p.m. readers didn't like the change, but - atypically for Roanoke - the brouhaha quickly died down. At least, that's the way I remember it.

Now Carr reports that this young fellow in Toronto has noticed "the afternoon represents an unmolested day part in the media cycle and presents a real business opportunity." Must send memo to publisher asap.

I was shocked by news that The Washington Post got caught attempting to sell access to public officials and high-level reporters by sponsoring dinners at Publisher Katherine Weymouth's home. I was thoroughly unconvinced by Weymouth's mia culpa.

Now Talking Points Memo is reporting that such efforts to sell access are hardly unique. The publisher of The Atlantic has been hosting such events since 2003.

I know revenues are tight, but some money-making schemes should never make it off the drawing board. Media credibility is in a precarious enough state without adding fuel to the fire.

Tuesday, we'll remind readers that texting while driving will become illegal in Virginia on Wednesday, when a new law goes into effect. To be effective, though, drivers will need to be aware of the change and acknowledge the dangers of inattentiveness while text-messaging.

That's what E.J. Dionne thinks, anyway. In today's column, he's critical of the press for paying more attention to conservative critics of President Obama than progressive critics, "treating far-right views as mainstream positions and by largely ignoring critiques of Obama that come from elected officials on the left."

The result leaves an impression of Obama as a politician "somewhere on the far left end of a truncated political spectrum" when, Dionne argues, the reality is this: Obama is "a politician with progressive values but moderate instincts who has hewed to the middle of the road in dealing with the economic crisis, health care, Guantanamo and the war in Afghanistan"

Dionne apportions some blame to Democrats for building up the unpopular Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich of de facto leaders of an increasingly marginalized Republican Party, but he says the media do more than their share of allowing Rush and Newt to set the news agenda.

"We're going to schools, we're going to barbecues, we're going to picnics. We're going to where they are to spread the word." A politician campaigning hard, perhaps? An evangelist? No, those assurances were offered by Roger Goldblatt, outreach adviser for the FCC, on the agency's final push toward full conversion to digital TV.

This time, the end really is near for analog TV. Broadcasters will stop transmitting analog signals on June 12, the FCC says. Really. Even though about 3.5 million U.S. households still haven't gotten the converter boxes needed to allow their old TV sets to receive the new digital signals. It sure hasn't been for lack of government effort.

The FCC already postponed the conversion date from February, to give laggards time to update their equipment. No more second chances.

Since Barack Obama took office, Glenn Beck has been creeping closer and closer to the edge, suggesting the FEMA might be building concentration camps for conservatives, going into tearful rants on air, etc.

Not exactly the guy positioning himself to argue for a return to sanity in American politics. But in the clip below, he does just that - after pretending (I assume) to douse a guy in gasoline and threaten to light him on fire.

Sanity?

Wow. Read this piece by The Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert about Bill O'Reilly including his paper in O'Reilly's "Hall of Shame." (We earned a spot there, too - a development I'm fairly certain I can take credit for.)

A sample of Ebert's sizzling smackdown:

To be in an O'Reilly Hall of Fame would be a cruel blow to any newspaper. It would place us in the favor of a man who turns red and starts screaming when anyone disagrees with him. My grade-school teacher, wise Sister Nathan, would have called in your parents and recommended counseling with Father Hogben.

The last line of the piece is a classic, but one I won't repeat on our family-friendly blog.