Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told Washington journalists Thursday night that free speech was messy, disorganized, and fundamental to a democracy that keeps the powerful honest. He pledged that his company stood with those journalists. "I'm here to tell you we stand with you," he said, but also said there "will never be a perfect way to combat censorship or privacy violations at home or abroad, but we're going to do our part." Schmidt said transparency was the key to protecting the First Amendment, and asked why every government meeting should not be streamed in real time to the world. "We've got the cameras, we've got the bandwidth, we've got the Internet and, believe me, we've got the viewers," he said. Schmidt was accepting, on behalf of Google, the Radio-Television News Directors Association First Amendment Leadership award for a business that has "upheld the highest standards of journalism and made a significant contribution to First Amendment Freedoms."
