Journalism Needs Government Help • Hacker News Board

Re: Journalism Needs Government Help

#51

Post by chc » Wed, Jul 14, 2010, 5:23 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #20

chrismealy wrote: post #4

Information is a public good[1] so there's a standard case for subsidizing it. To preserve choice and competition other folks have proposed giving everybody a $50 voucher that they can give to the news source of their choice. That would guarantee a minimum level of aggregate news production but not specify the particular producers. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

The least offensive version of this idea would be the one where the Government promises to buy advertising in every newspaper every day at a price proportional to its readership. To keep it nonpolitical, the advertising could be of the form of a full-page daily report laying out the which bills are being considered by which houses, what the Supreme Court is doing, the President's agenda for the day, and other strictl…

Why newspapers? News sites are far more efficient and environmentally friendly.

Re: Journalism Needs Government Help

#52

Post by Gormo » Wed, Jul 14, 2010, 5:23 PM UTC

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 wonder how much of pre-internet newspaper readership was really attributable to people just using the newspaper as a convenient source for mundane information: stock quotes, sports scores, weather, traffic, movie times, etc.

If newspapers do still provide the highest-quality journalism, despite no longer being the most convenient sources of mundane information, but the end result is that newspapers can no longer sustain their business model, then the value of journalism may be grossly inflated.

If few people actually want newspapers, it's not a significant problem if they go away.

Re: Journalism Needs Government Help

#53

Post by jerf » Fri, Jul 16, 2010, 1:05 AM UTC

tjmc wrote: post #30

jerf wrote: post #12

Earlier 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…

If you actually dig into the de facto structure of the government, rather than the de jure, I bet you'd find that the conservatives never actually controlled the purse strings. Remember, there's more to controlling the purse strings that first-order apparent raw voting power. What would it have cost the conservatives to shut off the money flow? If the liberals made it more than the benefits, then regardless of the de jure structure of governmental power, the conservatives never had de facto power to cut the funding off.

He who pays the piper calls the tune. If you think you've found a place where there's an exception, you haven't correctly identified the payer.