If you want to practice medicine, you must be licensed, to protect the public.

If you want to be an actuary, you must pass a series of difficult tests.

If you want to practice law, you must pass the bar exam before allowed to do so.

If you want to be a professional accountant, you must pass the CPA exam.

If you want to be a supplier, you often must be ISO 9001 certified.

If you want to be a teacher, each state has its set of certification requirements.

If you want to be regarded as competent in an engineering discipline, you must pass the PE exam.

If you want to be a journalist, apparently there are no standards to meet. Why don’t the hiring companies of journalists develop some standards, require certification or licensing like other professions? Then licenses could be suspended when they are found to be negligent, careless, untruthful, or harmful. Seems fair and reasonable to me.

To be clear, I’m not advocating for licenses as a gateway to censorship. Anyone is free to have their own blog or be guest opinion writers in the appropriate forum. But there has to be a mechanism in place to uphold responsibility and accountability if journalists are abusing their position and having a detrimental effect with their writing.