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Journalism Needs Government Help

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Re: Journalism Needs Government Help

#31

Post by stretchwithme »

hristov wrote: post #6

It 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…

I completely agree. The writer makes a big leap equating a dubious "natural monopoly" idea to public support. Is his argument only valid in a small town?

Newspapers started their economic decline well before the Internet. And television, which gave newspapers something called COMPETITION, is the reason.

Now, television is not going to do the job of a great newspaper. But a great newspaper doesn't do the job of a great library. Or a great interconnected electronic mesh of information we all seem to be getting easy access to these days.

Newspapers are nothing special. If people want it, it will be there when then the dust settles.

Re: Journalism Needs Government Help

#32

Post by inanimate »

hugh3 wrote: post #15
hristov wrote: post #6

It 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…

It's not an editorial, it's an opinion piece, by... some guy. If it were an actual editorial in the WSJ that would be shocking.

It's an opinion piece by the president of Columbia University.

Re: Journalism Needs Government Help

#33

Post by inanimate »

sliverstorm wrote: post #18
JacobAldridge wrote: post #3

I don't think this is the solution, but not because it will negatively impact the 'objectivity' of the press. The BP example is strong, and as an ex-jounro myself who's been around the newsroom, I know that for the vast majority of writers the memory of a free lunch fades by the time you need to write about it. I think this will fail in the way that all welfare-dependent industries must inevitably fail. If the busine…

Doesn't the US Postal Service get a ton of subsidies? I rather appreciate them, and the only reason they may be becoming less relevant is not through a fault of their own.

The US Postal Service gets virtually no subsidies and is a self-sufficient organization. It borrows money, however.

"Since its reorganization into an independent organization, the USPS has become self-sufficient and has not directly received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s with the minor exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters. However it is currently borrowing money from the U.S. Treasury to pay its deficits."

Re: Journalism Needs Government Help

#34

Post by jsz0 »

bokonist wrote: post #26
hooande wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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. The liberal bias of PBS is a matter of what topics they emphasize and which facts they select. One small example of many - Frontline has done several documentaries about atrocities committed by American soldiers. But it has never done a documentary about how ultra-strict (by any standard,…

The Wounded Platoon and Behind Taliban Lines both touch on the subject. I agree the engagement rules are worthy of having its own program but bias by admission of coverage is a tricky subject. They only have so many hours of programs they can produce. I can recall in recent months that College, Inc, The Quake, Obama's War and Obama's Deal were critical of the administration at times too.

Re: Journalism Needs Government Help

#35

Post by roboneal »

inanimate wrote: post #33
sliverstorm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the US Postal Service get a ton of subsidies? I rather appreciate them, and the only reason they may be becoming less relevant is not through a fault of their own.

The US Postal Service gets virtually no subsidies and is a self-sufficient organization. It borrows money, however. "Since its reorganization into an independent organization, the USPS has become self-sufficient and has not directly received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s with the minor exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters. However it is currently borrowing money f…

I don't equate "currently borrowing money from the U.S. Treasury to pay its deficits" as being "self-sufficient".

Re: Journalism Needs Government Help

#36

Post by roboneal »

GrowWebs wrote: post #5

Why not a nonprofit model instead? NPR has been operating successfully on donations for years! News organizations are already basically not making a profit. By reorganizing and paying back their debts, they can go back to focusing on what matters instead of increasing the bottom line. Why not take the meager revenues that news organizations are currently earning, deposit them into an endowment and supplement with a h…

"a one time large insanely public grant from the federal government"

There is one spot-on word in that phrase: INSANE-ly.

Re: Journalism Needs Government Help

#37

Post by tkahn6 »

bokonist wrote: post #26
hooande wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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. The liberal bias of PBS is a matter of what topics they emphasize and which facts they select. One small example of many - Frontline has done several documentaries about atrocities committed by American soldiers. But it has never done a documentary about how ultra-strict (by any standard,…

According to Wikipedia, the PBS Newshour has a 'pro-establishment' bias [1].

[1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBS_NewsHour#Criticism]

Re: Journalism Needs Government Help

#38

Post by philk »

hugh3 wrote: post #16
bobbyi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conflicts of interest for a corporate-owned news outlet are worse than those for a news source that receives some government support.

How's that? Each country has millions of sources of private-sector income, but only one government. There's the occasional potential for conflict of interest when a news outlet has to report on the doings of its own parent company, but news stories about news companies are quite rare and news stories about the Government happen every day.

That's because news companies are beholden to their advertisers rather than their readership. It's something you can see in (for example) the video games industry where the major magazines often handed out curiously high review scores to games coming from publishers that bought lots of advertising.

Another example would be newspapers which rely upon real estate advertisements for a large portion of their revenue; you won't see an article that's critical of the real estate industry in these papers.

Re: Journalism Needs Government Help

#39

Post by inanimate »

roboneal wrote: post #35
inanimate wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Postal Service gets virtually no subsidies and is a self-sufficient organization. It borrows money, however. "Since its reorganization into an independent organization, the USPS has become self-sufficient and has not directly received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s with the minor exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters. However it is currently borrowing money f…

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. Postal Service ended fiscal 1998 on Sept. 30 with a $600 million profit, $100 million more than projected, but leading industry officials were hoping the USPS could at least match, if not better fiscal 1997's $1.2 billion surplus, which was less than the $1.6 billion recorded in 1996 and significantly lower than the $1.8 billion achieved in 1995." http://directmag.com/news/marketing_observers_fear_end/

Corporations borrow money, especially when they run a deficit. Yet unless they're a larger part of some organization or the government, most people would call them self-sufficient--the ability to manage their own financial resources.

Sure the most strict definition of "self-sufficient" is to have absolutely no reliance on any external entity for anything, but by that definition then not a single organization in this country is self-sufficient.

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