Freedom of the Press: Treating the Constitution as a Private Preserve

Here is a transcript of an IM conversation today with my other daughter, Kyla, about how the institionall press in this couuntry tries to USE the First Amendment to advance its own self-interest--taking a false view of the Constitution as the private preserve of the institutional press to USE to protect whatever it wants to claim are its own perogatives.  I would add my own example of the El Paso Times, circa the 1970's, which actually ran an editorial that it was UNCONSTITUTIONAL to impose the same sales tax on newspaers as on all other products (including BOOKS, which are part of "the press").  "The press" is another institution out of control in this country.  Here is the conversation:

 Kyla778:  Daddy, if the press argues in one case that it should be entitled to a privilege to not reveal its sources when called before a grand jury becuase it violates the First Amendment (interferes w/news gathering), and in another case that it has a First Amendment right to reveal sources, even in breach of an agreement with that source (and that source has no cause of action against the press bc would violate First Am.), is there a way to make those arguments consistent
Skip3366:  No, because the arguments are based on a concept that has notthing to do with the Constitution:  the concept that the First Amendment means that the government can never take any action that adversely affects "the press".  EVERYONE (including my blog, and every other blog out there, and everyone running off a flyer) is "the press", and "freedom of speech" is on equal ground with "freedom of the press" in the Constitution.  The idea that the institutional press has some special privilege to create its own
Skip3366:  perogatives is bizarre.  The Supreme Court has generally not bought it, for good reason.  There is a Supreme Court decision that the "press" (all of us, again) has no constitutional right to withhold sources.