I think the methods applied are what needs accredited, not the results themselves. If an organization calls itself news or whatever nomenclature we agree to, they are claiming to follow accredited guidelines that we collectively trust.
At the end of the day, it comes down to heuristics around trust. It's not the message I want to validate, it's the means of preparation that bother me more. I can draw my own conclusions if I can trust the method.
Looking at it this way, would that resolve some of your concerns? Open auditing and accrediting do not need to involve censorship at all. You never lose the ability to say what you want, just to call yourself a "certified whatever". I dunno.
Note also that journalism is the only one of your mentioned professions that is specifically called out for protection in the Constitution.
Which ones don't?
The freedom of the press is the same thing as free speech, it applies to all of us. Correct me if you are referring to something else and I'm misunderstanding.
There are best practices in journalism, no? Disclosure, ethics, etc. How can I know if someone I rely on for information follows these rules. That's all I'm asking.
Doesn't canada do this? Aren't there requirements for calling yourself a news agency?
I contend that none of them do.
No. They are respectively a blogger, a blogger, and a Twitter user.
I don't think that anyone would be proposing restricting speech in this way, but on the same note, papers such as Weekly World News maybe couldn't pump out more stories about Bat Boy while attempting to call themselves journalists...
This raises the question: can the term "journalist" even be controlled?
How do you safeguard the political independence of the licensing of journalists? How do you ensure that a future government doesn't abuse the licensing regulations to suppress political criticism?
In the US, how do you reconcile this with the first amendment? How can you justify silencing people because they lack the 'correct' qualifications? If the only restriction is on the title 'journalist', what stops people from calling themselves a blogger while doing exactly the same things that a journalist does?