Yes, journalists deserve subsidies too (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Washington Post ^ | October 30, 2009 | Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols

[abb]

snip

It is not only the demise of big-name papers that should raise concern; the rapid decline of the newspaper industry is playing out quietly, with small, reasonably responsible dailies in cities and rural regions across the country disappearing without widespread notice. Dozens of daily and weekly newspapers have closed this year. Cities that once enjoyed the fruits of newspaper competition (Denver, Seattle) are starving. "Surviving" publications -- and many have filed for bankruptcy -- are cutting reporting staffs to the bone (this month, the New York Times said it would cut 100 more newsroom jobs). International bureaus, statehouse bureaus and Washington bureaus are being shuttered as media companies abandon the duty of telling citizens what is done in their name but, increasingly, without their informed consent.

snip

This leaves one place to look for a solution: the government.

snip

We seek to renew a rich if largely forgotten legacy of the American free-press tradition, one that speaks directly to today's crisis. The First Amendment necessarily prohibits state censorship, but it does not prevent citizens from using their government to subsidize and spawn independent media.

snip

Saving newspapers may be impossible. But we can save journalism. Step one is to begin debating ways for enlightened public subsidies to provide a competitive and independent digital news media. Also, we should greatly expand funding for public and community media, and establish policies that help convert dying daily newspapers into post-corporate low-profit news operations that realize the potential of the Internet. If we do so, journalism and democracy will not just survive. They will flourish.

[abb]

Barf.

[abb]

ping

[Doogle]

Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols...stuff it where most of your ideas belong

[Arm_Bears]

Holding your customers in contempt is not a good business strategy.

Holding your customers in contempt, and lying to them, is an even worse business strategy.

[abb]

http://www.minnpost.com/braublog/2009/10/30/13007/mprs_minnesota_today_minnesota_taxpayer_funded
MPR’s Minnesota Today: Minnesota taxpayer funded

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/post_22.php
Newspapers Get the Slate Treatment

[abb]

[libertylover]

but it does not prevent citizens from using their government to subsidize and spawn independent media.

Is it possible that these liberals really don't see that this is a contradiction? Sigh. I guess not.

[Panzerlied]

“Saving newspapers may be impossible. But we can save journalism.”

Unfortunately, logical thought processes, journalism and these clowns’ grammar ARE DEAD JIM!

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

When the government subsidizes the newspapers the government will dictate what is to be printed as news.

[TChris]

When the government subsidizes the newspapers the government will dictate what is to be printed as news.

Ahh. Well then, nothing will change.

[Old North State]

Obama, the former constitutional law professor, says, “Government without a tough and vibrant media is not an option for the United States of America.”
Unfortunately, the marketplace now eliminates journalism jobs at a rate in excess of 1,000 a month — with little concern for the president's view....

Well, that's the trouble isn't it?
We , the taxpayers, don't want to pay you to express Obama’s views. if you want subsidies you should have thought if that before you signed up as agents of the Democratic Party.

[pabianice]

[abb]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/29/AR2009102904287.html
Canwest says National Post might fold

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2009/10/fcc-taps-steve-waldman-for-important-yet-hard-to-describe-job.html
FCC taps Steve Waldman for important yet hard to describe job

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/week_layoffs_put_an_end_to_the_forbes_hVx9SGQxTvcFbE0gdpIULL
Week’s layoffs put an end to the Forbes Life

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3846271
Newmark: Media’s New Curator Role

[johniegrad]

Interesting graph. What accounts for the tremendous growth in advertising revenues between 1978 and 2000?

If we knew that, it might be possible to determine whether the current situation is just a "market correction" for a previously over valued asset.

[La Lydia]

What a load. How are you going to "speak truth to power" if power is paying your salary? Your "truth" will be what "power" wants it to be.

Did we just call for state-run media? Quite the opposite.

Yes, you did. How STUPID DO THESE PEOPLE THINK WE ARE? Here is what is going on: The Internet, as an alternate source of information, has allowed people to almost instantly identify which newspapers are lying to them and/or blacking out certain news. As people have come to the conclusion that newspapers are dishonest and biased, their news consumption habits have changed. The newspapers have done this to themselves, and now the lying stinkers expect taxpayers to provide support. Why should I be paying taxes to maintain Katharine Weymouth's or “Pinch” Sulzberger's lavish lifestyle? Are we supposed to believe our tax dollars will go to the man in the back cubicle writing the obits or the woman covering the police beat? Please. There are newspapers in this country that are profitable because they are doing what newspapers are supposed to do: report the news objectively and keep editorial opinions out of the news columns.

[eeevil conservative]

Let Sean Penn "bail them out"

[GeronL]

Save

...... The

............ Buggy Whips!

brought to you by the Buggy Whip Manufacturers Association

[GeronL]

Another crappy article by the Government Post

[GeronL]

You say that like the internet might be around a while.

The government could easily come up with a pretext to shut it down. Ban mass demonstrations, Shut down talk radio...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2374505/posts

They could you know. (see link)

[GeronL]

http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com/2009/10/great-washing.html

The Great Washing, my own conspiracy theory

[abb]

What accounts for the tremendous growth in advertising revenues between 1978 and 2000?

In a word, monopoly. They grew along with the rest of the economy at the time. Newspapers, direct mail and magazines were the only means of producing durable advertising copy (ink-on-paper). Contrast durable ads with radio or tv ads which may be effective, but are not lasting unless you write down the phone number, address, etc.

Now along comes the internet. Durable ads that can be referred to time and again. Sound. Moving pictures. Interactive - a buyer can ask questions before purchase. Time-friendly - you see the ads on your timetable as opposed to when the broadcaster or publisher decides to show them to you.

The internet is a vastly superior form of human communications and as advertisers learn how to more effectively use it, the old stuff will just fade away.

[abb]

They could you know.

I don't believe government can marshal sufficient political capital to directly attack the internet. The best they can do is nibble around the margins, which they are busy doing every day.

Five hundred years ago, kingdoms were alarmed at the invention of the printing press. Couldn't stop it. Totalitarian countries have tried with varying degrees of success to control electronic broadcast, but somehow information gets around.

The internet is here to stay, in my opinion.

[abb]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004032019
Q3 Profit Up at Washington Post Co. — No Thanks to Newspapers

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004032021
‘Dallas Morning News’ Parent Narrows Q3 Loss — 27% Slump in Ad Revenue

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/it_pink_slip_time_FlaIvb3nkxf3Y9B1cZeo9H
It’s pink-slip Time
6% of workforce to be gone by Thanksgiving

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/
Wild guesses won’t solve journalism crisis

[LeonardFMason]

Sorry. There will be no escape from the TAR pit for you. Good riddance.

[Don Corleone]

To the fired newsies...I hear that Fox News is hiring...but there you would have to pass an intelligence test....sorry.

[abb]

http://cancelthebee.blogspot.com/
Circulation changes at The News Tribune, The Olympian, Anchorage Daily News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fresno Bee, Idaho Statesman, & Wichita Eagle

[Milhous]

Private citizens in urban areas can easily make their own Inet from cheap antennas and WiFi. Linking urban areas together requires a bit more imagination. For instance, you might pull the old telephone company trick of using barb wired fence for long lines.

OTOH who really knows what data appears in the trillions (quadrillions? quintillions?) of packets simultaneously passing through the traditional Inet?

IMHO the Inet describes a concept rather than an actual physical plant. Otherwise the powers that be would already be in our faces.

As it now stands the powers that be make do with monkeying with the Domain Name System. Which is similar to trying to control telephones by appropriating the White Pages.

[dead]

When the government subsidizes the newspapers the government will dictate what is to be printed as news.
Ahh. Well then, nothing will change.

The only difference is that compliance with the government agenda will be mandatory rather than voluntary.

But, as you said, the practical effect would be impossible to determine, unless a conservative ever found his way back into office.

[Nosterrex]

Journalism died decades ago. Obama is living proof of that.

[cranked]

Work for what you earn....

No way in hell should any aspects of journalism or “journalists” recieve taxpayer money.

[abb]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/time-warners-new-albatross-time-inc-2009-10-30?siteid=nbih
Time Warner’s new albatross: Time Inc.
Commentary: Publishing unit is a big drag on the parent

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/washington-posts-mariano-rivera-saves-the-day-2009-10-30?siteid=nbih
Washington Post Co.’s ‘Mariano Rivera’ saves the day
Commentary: Its shareholders thank their stars for Kaplan — again

[Interesting Times]

We seek to renew a rich if largely forgotten legacy of the American free-press tradition, one that speaks directly to today's crisis.

Flowery, dishonest words used to obscure an unpleasant reality.

The government-financed system advocated here has little in common with the American idea of a free press. It is much more similar to the "journalism" practiced in the old Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes.

[Landru]

Journalists, all of 'em, deserve nothing less than the swiftest of all kicks to the ass. Period. And I'm being quite charitable.

Because if it were up to me? One of the rarer times I'd borrowed a punishment straight from the Koran, requiring no explanation.

Sorry, my friend.
There was simply no other, more polite way to contain my passion concerning what they've done to the Republic.

[abb]

McChesney is a collectivist of the first order. I read one of his books several months ago.

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/?view=usa&ci=0195093941
Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy
The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935

He spent the whole book whining that advertising and private enterprise - rather than government - managed to gain control over radio broadcasting.

[Milhous]

The WaPo loves to pat itself on its back by frequently touting its own March 2007 "investigative journalism" into substandard conditions at VA hospitals. (The exact same substandard conditions that still fester and grow worse by the day BTW.)

By reflex politicians "solve" problems by throwing money at it. Plan on IT getting more than its fair share of any money thrown at the VA.

VFW November/December 2009
VA Cited for Inappropriate Bonuses (excerpt)

... Focusing on VA's Office of Information and Technology, the report noted that managers "were not fiscally responsible in administering awards." It singled out one manager, Jennifer S. Duncan, who retired in April 2009, noting that she "acted as if she was given a blank checkbook to write unlimited monetary awards."

Duncan, the former executive assistant to former VA assistant secretary for information and technology Robert Howard, gave herself $60,000 in bonuses in 2007 and 2008, when the average for her pay grade was less than $15,000 for that period. The report also alleged that Duncan violated anti-nepotism rules by hiring relatives and improperly authorized $140,000 of college tuition payments for friends and family members. ...

[chris_bdba]

This has to be satire ,right? If it isn’t it is funny as h*ll. Not no but H*LL NO!

[abb]

http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091030/businessweeks-future-is-cloudy-but-better-than-it-could-have-been-the-grim-non-bloomberg-scenario/
BusinessWeek’s Future Is Cloudy, but Better Than It Could Have Been: The Grim Non-Bloomberg Scenario

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/FineOnMedia/archives/2009/10/businessweek_pr.html
BusinessWeek President Keith Fox to Stay With McGraw-Hill

[Landru]

"The WaPo loves to pat itself on its back by frequently touting its own March 2007 "investigative journalism" into substandard conditions at VA hospitals. (The exact same substandard conditions that still fester and grow worse by the day BTW.)"

Perhaps they'd do better practicing the patting on the back(s) of their bankruptcy shysters? LOL

"By reflex politicians "solve" problems by throwing money at it. Plan on IT getting more than its fair share of any money thrown at the VA."

Same ol' same old, my friend.
Will [we] n/ever learn?

[Milhous]

Anyone blessed (or cursed depending upon POV) with foresight knew exactly what to expect from the WaPo's Pulitzer Prize worthy story. (Intuition confirmed: WaPo did indeed receive a Pulitzer as suspected.)

Some argue that politicians just do the dirty work of the majority. Politicians deliver the government that the majority wants.

I reckon G-d created such voters to force me to grow smarter by constantly coping with the outright insanity.

[abb]

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=172715
Auletta: Internet Disruption Similar to Cable in the ‘80s

http://www.minnpost.com/braublog/2009/10/29/12981/race_to_the_bottom_after_star_tribune_bankruptcy_pioneer_press_owners_seek_wage_cuts
Race to the bottom: After Star Tribune bankruptcy, Pioneer Press owners seek wage cuts

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2009/10/can-newfangled-web-ads-save-journalism.html
Can Newfangled Web Ads Save Journalism?

[abb]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aImFGVU.vLNI
Canwest Wins Judge’s Approval to Save National Post

http://www.financialpost.com/news-sectors/story.html?id=2164840
Post to be transferred to Canwest publishing

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

This leaves one place to look for a solution: the government.

When the government subsidizes the newspapers the government will dictate what is to be printed as news.

Ahh. Well then, nothing will change.

This leaves one place NOT to look for a solution: the government.

[Landru]

"Anyone blessed (or cursed depending upon POV) with foresight knew exactly what to expect from the WaPo's Pulitzer Prize worthy story. (Intuition confirmed: WaPo did indeed receive a Pulitzer as suspected.)"

Same reason zerO got a Nobel, my friend.
In the case of WACompost's "investigative" piece they were awarded for attacking "Bush's VA" while zerO for attacking policy. The operative word being, attack.
At least in my narrow world view, anyway.

"Some argue that politicians just do the dirty work of the majority. Politicians deliver the government that the majority wants."

~& deserve.
The curse sounds ancient. LOL

All this nonsensical crap set me out to locate a good print of Diogenes', "Searching for a honest man".
Ever see it?
Well I found one, is getting framed right now.
Will hang it so it can be seen whenever on my box. ;^)

"I reckon G-d created such voters to force me to grow smarter by constantly coping with the outright insanity."

I reckon you're absolutely correct, my friend.
He created them for all who're searching, providing they'll accept what they find. A real toughie for me. :^)