If old technologies die out because of newer and better technologies then that's called progress. Why should the newspapers be immune to this? If they can't make a product that people want to purchase then they need to adapt or die.
Journalism Needs Government Help
41–50 of 53 posts
Re: Journalism Needs Government Help
#42It is somewhat shocking to see this editorial in the wall street journal of all places. I have to say I strongly disagree. Subsidized press will just encourage more conflicts of interest in coverage of politics, will waste taxpayer money, and is unlikely to result in better journalism. About newspapers losing money, I suspect the main reason for this, and the reason nobody mentions is that newspapers and media compan…
NPR and PBS seem to have no problem with balanced and insightful journalism, despite being publically funded. Many people accuse public broadcasting of having a liberal bias, but in my years of listening I haven't heard that much if at all. They give fair time to all sides and they rarely favor any administration. I find it very hard to believe that public radio and television are a waste of taxpayer money. For profi…
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Re: Journalism Needs Government Help
#43I grant the premise that most modern mainstream news organizations would require subsidies in order to survive unchanged indefinitely.
I refute the notion that this is in any way a desirable state of affairs, however. The invention of the modern media institutions has been due to historically anomalous conditions and has largely been deleterious to the quality of news gathering and dissemination. I won't be sad to see these dinosaurs dead and gone, replaced with a cacophony of competing and contrary individual voices serving as mulch for cultivating the capacity for critical thinking and skeptical inquiry of the modern world's minds.
Re: Journalism Needs Government Help
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't equate "currently borrowing money from the U.S. Treasury to pay its deficits" as being "self-sufficient".
Then you're using a different definition. In this context, self-sufficiency refers to its financial and organizational position within the United States government as an agency to manage its own finances externally from the Congressional Budget Office and has nothing to do with its bottom line. The USPS is currently running a deficit but has also ran a surplus: "Despite record gross revenue of $60.1 billion, the U.S.…
> ended fiscal 1998 on Sept. 30
Wrong decade. They lost 3.8 billion last year and expect to lose billions more this year [1]. They claim to have operational independence, but the Senate cuts them a check for losses that the Post Office will never pay back because its current form becomes less relevant and necessary every year. Fedex and UPS can do better package shipping, and electronic could take over for almost all documents now.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11...
I say close it down. Auction the assets off, pay post office workers a year or two's pay for no work to appease them, and give some kind of buyout to people with pension plans. Keeping the Post Office running to preserve jobs is a farce and massive waste of important resources.
Re: Journalism Needs Government Help
#45It is somewhat shocking to see this editorial in the wall street journal of all places. I have to say I strongly disagree. Subsidized press will just encourage more conflicts of interest in coverage of politics, will waste taxpayer money, and is unlikely to result in better journalism. About newspapers losing money, I suspect the main reason for this, and the reason nobody mentions is that newspapers and media compan…
"the right wing papers will use this to once again call him a socialist while still pocketing their subsidy." Why on earth would right-wing papers get a subsidy? Or, more accurately, why would papers that disagree with whomever controls the pursestrings at the moment get a subsidy? You don't even have to cut off a paper the payer doesn't like, just reduce their payout. And why wouldn't Obama support it? Why wouldn't…
"why wouldn't Obama support it?"
Because America is still a democracy and he would be voted out in the next elections and the guy who promises to end the subsidy would be voted in if the people do not want the newspapers to be subsidies.
Re: Journalism Needs Government Help
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
"the right wing papers will use this to once again call him a socialist while still pocketing their subsidy." Why on earth would right-wing papers get a subsidy? Or, more accurately, why would papers that disagree with whomever controls the pursestrings at the moment get a subsidy? You don't even have to cut off a paper the payer doesn't like, just reduce their payout. And why wouldn't Obama support it? Why wouldn't…
> There is absolutely, positively no such thing as a free press sponsored by public funds directed by the government. Care to cite any references? What about the BBC and (Australian) ABC? Both have been huge thorns in the side of their respective governments over the years. In the case of the ABC, they definitely lean towards a liberal editorial view and this was maintained throughout 12 years of the previous conserv…
In Germany, we have had public radio and tv stations for decades, funded by a tax-like mechanism for people owing tv and radio recievers. Since they are public instituions, political influence is obvious.
Contrary to jerf's assertions, however, it seems to work both ways: It provides news that is often carefully balanced and 'factual' and there are also formats that pursue a political agenda and publish inconvinient stuff.
Re: Journalism Needs Government Help
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The BBC does a better job at journalism than any US broadcaster or cable network channel. It's also completely funded by taxes.
Not completely accurate... at least not in the sense most Americans think of it. The Beeb is funded almost entirely by TV licenses. True, this is still technically a tax, but it's not like the BBC has a limitless slush fund of income tax to draw upon. Wikipedia actually has a really great breakdown of the funding. If the U.S. government wants to have a government-run newspaper corp, then fine. Have it wholly funded b…
I was trying to refute the argument that a government-funded news source is necessarily plagued by conflicts of interests and results in poor journalism.
As to your point about the source of funding... Given that most written news is moving online, would you support a tax on internet service to support written journalism?
Re: Journalism Needs Government Help
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not completely accurate... at least not in the sense most Americans think of it. The Beeb is funded almost entirely by TV licenses. True, this is still technically a tax, but it's not like the BBC has a limitless slush fund of income tax to draw upon. Wikipedia actually has a really great breakdown of the funding. If the U.S. government wants to have a government-run newspaper corp, then fine. Have it wholly funded b…
I was trying to refute the argument that a government-funded news source is necessarily plagued by conflicts of interests and results in poor journalism. As to your point about the source of funding... Given that most written news is moving online, would you support a tax on internet service to support written journalism?
I agree with your point, and taxing internet to pay for newspapers would be horrible... but it is the kind of funding scheme I would expect from the U.S. Congress.
Re: Journalism Needs Government Help
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
"the right wing papers will use this to once again call him a socialist while still pocketing their subsidy." Why on earth would right-wing papers get a subsidy? Or, more accurately, why would papers that disagree with whomever controls the pursestrings at the moment get a subsidy? You don't even have to cut off a paper the payer doesn't like, just reduce their payout. And why wouldn't Obama support it? Why wouldn't…
> There is absolutely, positively no such thing as a free press sponsored by public funds directed by the government. Care to cite any references? What about the BBC and (Australian) ABC? Both have been huge thorns in the side of their respective governments over the years. In the case of the ABC, they definitely lean towards a liberal editorial view and this was maintained throughout 12 years of the previous conserv…
That's a false dichotomy; it's not a question of whether specific public broadcasters have or have not been a "thorn in the side" of the governments that sponsor them. And even that is a subjective assessment, since we don't know what hasn't been reported as a result of political influence, or whether intra-governmental conflicts haven't been affected by some factions having more influence over the press than others.
I don't think jerf was making an empirical claim - a "free press" dependent upon political financing and governance is a contradiction in terms.
Re: Journalism Needs Government Help
#50It is somewhat shocking to see this editorial in the wall street journal of all places. I have to say I strongly disagree. Subsidized press will just encourage more conflicts of interest in coverage of politics, will waste taxpayer money, and is unlikely to result in better journalism. About newspapers losing money, I suspect the main reason for this, and the reason nobody mentions is that newspapers and media compan…
NPR and PBS seem to have no problem with balanced and insightful journalism, despite being publically funded. Many people accuse public broadcasting of having a liberal bias, but in my years of listening I haven't heard that much if at all. They give fair time to all sides and they rarely favor any administration. I find it very hard to believe that public radio and television are a waste of taxpayer money. For profi…
NPR and PBS are independent nonprofits that get most of their funding from private donations, and are in no way subject to government oversight.
Only a small fraction of NPR's and PBS's funding come from government, and most of that doesn't even come from the government directly, but from another nonprofit, the CPB, which in turn receive federal grants.
Whatever government influence is present in the existing public broadcasters is negligible and is entirely diluted by the influence of civil society in general.
The article is pretty vague as to what it's proposing, but it seems to be suggesting much more direct political funding of the press, and not just broadcasters, but newspapers.
More importantly, the author is suggesting that the government should consider funding the press because without new sources of funding, the established press will become extinct. In other words, he's advocating setting up a system in which the press is dependent upon political funding for its survival. This would be an unprecedented situation, and would generate conflicts of interest unlike anything we have now.