The Truth -- So Long As It's Profitable ["Is publicly supported media the answer?"]

The American Prospect ^ | October 4, 2007 | Ezra Klein

[Plutarch]

Journalism trends prove that profit-seeking and truth-telling don't really mix. Is publicly supported media the answer?

"I have always been firmly persuaded," wrote Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "that our newspapers cannot be edited in the interests of the general public, from the counting room." Increasingly, the slow decline of American media is proving him right. As the Internet deprives newspapers of the monopolistic business models of yesteryear and the cable channels construct a realm of perfect competition in which mild consumer preferences -- say, for the channel with a bright American flag in the corner rather than the one without -- can be expressed with a click of a remote, the newsroom's traditional buffers against triviality and hollow sensationalism are showing themselves to be deeply inadequate.

Additionally, increased competition and less cross-subsidization from classified ads means that every week's news stories come with a couple articles on how there will be fewer news stories; how this or that paper needed to close this or that bureau because this or that corporate overlord just didn't see the point.

...Yet government has helped the press for years, and the reduced postal rates, copyright protections, favorable tax treatment, and other sundry subsidies don't appear particularly causal in the press's treatment of government action. And that's not even getting into the huge subsidies the government offers in the form of radio and television wave licenses, which grant public bandwidth to private companies. The government is so quiet about this giveaway that they don't so much as demand a few preempted sitcoms to allow full coverage of the quadrennial political conventions...

...There are many models America could adopt. An independent commission that allocates money raised by an automatic tax that exists outside -- and thus away from the influence of -- the congressional appropriations process. Or Dean Baker's idea for an "Artistic Freedom Voucher" that would be controlled by taxpayers. Or even a simple, renewed commitment to publicly financed media. This requires overcoming our allergy to government support of goods with a public function. But what an odd nation we are if our discomfort with government support outweighs our fear of a media whose first imperative is to profit, rather than to inform. Such peculiar values would make for a helluva newspaper story, if there's anyone left to write it.

[Plutarch]

Every thread about the Dinosaur media meltdown has posts predicting the victorious Democrats will bailout the MSM. I figured that the left had to be working on this, so I did some Googling, and found this article from 2007 (we are not likely to find any article from 2008, as it would need to be kept under wraps in an election year).

[Tublecane]

“Is publicly supported media the answer?”

NO! That would only make all the media like PBS and NPR. (shudder)

[Tublecane]

I have to ask, if the internet is making the old media obsolete, why do we need to take any action at all? Why can’t we just let the internet take over?

[The_Reader_David]

I’m sure Obama would love to have only publicly supported media, under the control of a newly created Department of Truth. (Ministry doesn’t work on this side of the pond.)

[stockpirate]

You can bet that the socialists in congress will nationalize the media first chance they get.

[Fox_Mulder77]

So the British are spending about 15 times as much as we are, despite being only one-fifth our size. The result is that in a country renowned for a vicious, tabloid-style press, the BBC stands protected in the center, producing constant, credible, adversarial journalism that need not compete on grounds of sensationalism.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Milhous]

Grousing about news stories written on the back of ads.

[sam_paine]

if the internet is making the old media obsolete, ....Why can’t we just let the internet take over?

Because 'the internet' is not going to take over when all the local/indy sites go down, AP/Reuters will be taking over:

News Agency Dominance in International News on the Internet

The [internet] aggregators offer the bizarre spectacle of readers offered dozens of links to entirely irrelevant media outlets for every story. For a breaking story in China, for example, readers may be offered links to the likes of the Arizona Republic, KRQE Television (New Mexico), and the Calgary Sun.

Most of these local and regional news outlets, of course, will be providing the same news agency coverage and offer readers no unique coverage of the story. The intention seems merely to offer the “4,500 news sources updated continuously,” as Google news promises.

This leaves us with a picture of an online news world (in the English language) where only four organisations do extensive international reporting (Reuters, AP, AFP, BBC) a few others do some international reporting (CNN, MSN, New York Times, Guardian and a few other large newspaper and broadcasters), and most do no original international reporting.

[MathDoc]

I have to ask, if the internet is making the old media obsolete, why do we need to take any action at all? Why can’t we just let the internet take over?

That's the problem. This problem will be solved unless the government intervenes. I expect immediate government action to "fix the problem" since that is the only way to maintain the status quo.

[Milhous]

IIRC you know about my own proclivity for obtaining news direct from newsmakers. Keeping with your theme of international news and randomly choosing Somali Piracy as topic yields an AFRICOM News story about NATO navies conducting anti-piracy duties. Granted that some people greet stories sourced by the US Mil with skepticism. OTOH I greet aforementioned skeptical people with my own skepticism.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

"I have always been firmly persuaded," wrote Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "that our newspapers cannot be edited in the interests of the general public, from the counting room."

That is correct, they can only be edited to interest the public, not in the public interest - which is an altogether different thing.

Increasingly, the slow decline of American media is proving him right.

No, the decline of newspapers proves that technology has subverted the newspapers' business model. Since newspapers were never edited in the public interest in the first place, the financial failure of Associated Press Journalism says nothing about that.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

if the internet is making the old media obsolete, ....Why can’t we just let the internet take over?

Because 'the internet' is not going to take over when all the local/indy sites go down, AP/Reuters will be taking over

But the trouble with that thesis is that the AP depended on a monopoly of the use of the telegraph to transmit news. The Internet subverts that monopoly, allowing anyone anywhere in the world (a Michael Yon in Iraq, for example) to compete with the AP.

Of course we will have to be skeptical of such reports - just as we have to be skeptical of the Associated Press or of Reuters.

The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing . . .

It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity,
and they very seldom teach it enough.   - Adam Smith

That is why we come to FR - to pool our skepticism.

[Plutarch]

Just like the Fairness Doctrine, the MSM subsidy has been talked about among the left, but kept under wraps until they can get Obama elected.

September / October 2007

The Uncle Sam Solution

Can the government help the press? Should it?

By Bree Nordenson  

This past spring, the Columbia Journalism Review convened a panel of top editors and a media investor to discuss the somewhat tiresome topic of the future of newspapers. The situation is undeniably bleak. One need merely consult Romenesko, the media-news aggregator, to witness the freefall in circulation, the unending editorial cutbacks, and the closure of foreign bureaus at so many major metropolitan papers...

...government should play a role in ensuring the future of journalism: “To the extent that the for-profit business model doesn’t provide the level of information that we think society should have, that’s what government is for, and I believe that.”