JAMES TARANTO: McResearch: Watch out for junk journalism. “Perhaps the White House is too generous in handing out temporary press credentials, but it seems to us that the idea of the government’s issuing ‘privileges’ to journalists in exchange for which they are held to standards of ‘professional responsibility’ is awfully close to a regime of press licensing and cartelization, which would be an anathema to the First Amendment. The right to engage in journalism–also known as freedom of speech and of the press–belongs to everyone. News organizations adhere to professional standards not because the government compels them to (except to the limited extent that they can be legally liable for certain types of false or intrusive reporting) but because their credibility, and thus their long-term cultural and commercial viability as purveyors of information, depends on it. . . . New media make it easier to disseminate both bad information and good. That poses a dual hazard to professional journalists: As the hazards of slipping up have multiplied, so have the opportunities to shine a light on journalist error or malfeasance.”