FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF HAVING IT BOTH WAYS: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, along with The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and others, have filed a brief in the Fourth Circuit asking the appellate court to affirm that Maryland’s Online Electioneering Transparency and Accountability Act is unconstitutional. (A federal district court held it unconstitutional in January, and the State of Maryland is taking an appeal to defend the law).

What’s that law about? You might remember certain newspapers (*ahem*) have been pounding the drums for two years now about dark and secretive influences online responsible for “hacking our democracy” and putting The Bad Orange Man in the White House. Thousands of column inches (not to mention hours of cable TV time) have been dedicated to demanding that government step in and make sure the “correct” political voices are heard and the “fake” ones be filtered out.

So what’s the problem here? Oh, buried in the RCFP’s press release is this telling nugget:

“The brief also notes the significant and adverse financial impact that the law will have on news organizations if they must comply with the disclosure requirements, noting that Google stopped accepting political advertisements in Maryland when the law went into effect. “The Act would be especially devastating to local and regional newspapers,” the brief states, emphasizing the financial burden smaller news outlets would incur in order to simply comply with the advertising reporting requirements.

Allocating staff time and financial resources to reporting advertisements could directly take away from the amount of journalism that the news organization can produce, Reporters Committee Staff Attorney Caitlin Vogus said. If news outlets were required to disclose publication-specific advertising information, it could also potentially compromise their competitive edge in the local news market.”

So the core of the matter is that our Gatekeepers of Democracy want accountability in political advertising, but are not willing to share the burden. They want the glorious ad revenue (and believe me, political season is Christmastime for publishers) but want someone else to carry the expenses associated with that revenue. As my ConLaw Professor Burt Neuborne once said: “The First Amendment is not a license to print money.”