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What to do about newspapers? Let's give all Americans an annual tax credit for the first $200 they spend on daily newspapers. The newspapers would have to publish at least five times per week and maintain a substantial "news hole," say at least twenty-four broad pages each day, with less than 50 percent advertising. In effect, this means the government will pay for every citizen who so desires to get a free daily newspaper subscription, but the taxpayer gets to pick the newspaper--this is an indirect subsidy, because the government does not control who gets the money. This will buy time for our old media newsrooms--and for us citizens--to develop a plan to establish journalism in the digital era. We could see this evolving into a system to provide tax credits for online subscriptions as well.
1 posted on 03/19/2009 3:43:44 PM PDT by abb
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To: 04-Bravo; aimhigh; andyandval; Arizona Carolyn; backhoe; Bahbah; bert; bilhosty; Birch T. Barlow; ..

ping


2 posted on 03/19/2009 3:44:31 PM PDT by abb ("What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS." Ed Biersmith, 1942 -)
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To: abb

mark


3 posted on 03/19/2009 3:45:12 PM PDT by Former Proud Canadian (How do I change my screen name now that we have the most conservative government in the world?)
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To: abb

It’s not worth saving, it’s completely brain dead and rotting.... unplug it and put it in the dirt.


4 posted on 03/19/2009 3:46:03 PM PDT by Gator113 (For America to Survive, Obama Must Fail..... Obama=Failure in Chief with the Audacity of Dope.....)
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To: abb
Based on what other highly democratic and free countries do, the allocation from the government should be closer to $10 billion. All totaled, the suggestions we make here for subscription subsidies, postal reforms, youth media and investment in public broadcasting have a price tag in the range of $60 billion over the next three years.

So our so-called journalists want to become Amtrak. Let's call it Ampress.

What gall.

6 posted on 03/19/2009 3:51:10 PM PDT by Publius (The Quadri-Metallic Standard: Gold and silver for commerce, lead and brass for protection.)
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To: abb
The country's great regional dailies--the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer--are in bankruptcy. Denver's Rocky Mountain News recently closed down, ending daily newspaper competition in that city. The owners of the San Francisco Chronicle, reportedly losing $1 million a week

They'd probably like to double their subscription numbers with the Republican and Conservative readers they've alienated for decades, but too late!

7 posted on 03/19/2009 3:53:19 PM PDT by RJL
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To: abb

“Other democracies outspend the United States by whopping margins per capita on public media: Canada sixteen times more; Germany twenty times more; Japan forty-three times more; Britain sixty times more; Finland and Denmark seventy-five times more.”

So what is this guy trying to demonstrate? That per capita on spending public media is inversely proportional to personal freedom? We already know that. But note how the left considers it axionmatic that the U.S. (still the most free and wealthy country in the world) should seek to copy the “Other Democracies”.


11 posted on 03/19/2009 4:06:02 PM PDT by haroldeveryman
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To: abb

Have we had any great newspapers since WWII?

That was when I started reading newspapers and watched them turn into PR wings for the DNC.


14 posted on 03/19/2009 4:12:53 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (Does Zer0 have any friends, who are not criminals, foreign/domestic terrorists, or tax evaders?)
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To: abb

The amazing thing is, and the author who seems like an intelligent person, that he really doesn’t get the picture at all. All the reasons which he states do not get to the fact that most newspapers do not print news, but propaganda for the liberals in power and spew hate if a perceived conservative is in power. They have many of the characteristics of the controlled former Soviet Union press (Pravda and Izvestiya) and the current Arab presses. The TV networks are not any better.

And he has the gall to ask for tax support. I am postulating that something different will arise from the ashes of large urban dailies in a decade or so.


16 posted on 03/19/2009 4:22:23 PM PDT by Citizen Tom Paine
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To: abb

The Nation. Ever notice how it’s always the communists who want to save the Democrat newspapers?


18 posted on 03/19/2009 4:26:32 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: abb

The First Amendment guarantees a free press.

If these communist propagandists are so in love with the job of being “journalists” let them continue working...for free!


19 posted on 03/19/2009 4:31:15 PM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER (RATs...nothing more than Bald Haired Hippies!)
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To: abb
TV news operations have become celebrity- and weather-obsessed "profit centers" rather than the journalistic icons of the Murrow and Cronkite eras.

What? No Rather? Oh, that's right - - he got caught.

But what happens when the last reporter stops collecting a newspaper paycheck and goes into PR or lobbying? She'll leave cable an empty vessel and take the public's right to know anything more than a rhetorical flourish with her.

LOL, I haven't seen this kind of eye-rolling political correctness in couple of years.

Politicians and administrators will work increasingly without independent scrutiny and without public accountability.

Har! Yeah, where would we be if our "journalists" hadn't so aggressively vetted the "community organizer" who ran for president? Man, the way the Democrat newsrooms went after Dumbo, even going so far as to send hordes of "investigative journalists" to Alaska to find out where he buys his panties... Oh wait...

I want everybody associated with the Democrat "mainstream" newsrooms to lose their jobs, their homes, their life savings, and their families. For the damage they have done to America, they deserve nothing less. (spit) Good riddance to the big city Democrat newspapers.

20 posted on 03/19/2009 4:46:42 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: abb
After years of neglecting signs of trouble, elite opinion-makers have begun...

By the way, is "elite opinion-makers" just a duplicitous way of saying "propagandists"?

21 posted on 03/19/2009 4:53:19 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: abb; Mrs. B.S. Roberts

The author of this nonsense is paying NO attention to the basic reason for people turning their backs on what he claims is journalism.
When the “journalism schools” began to turn out extreme left-wing and leftists “journalists” their papers firt angered then disgusted their readers. I personally await the death and burial of the Boston Globe, a newspaper that at one time was the ‘beginning of my day.’
When the Democrat President, Johnson, vastly expanded the war in Vietman, the PRESS, heady from its VICTORY over the hated Richard Nixon, rapidly took on a virulent anti-American position.
Each even was covered in a way to show the USA in the worst possible light. Atrocities committed by the communists was ignored, while the least tragedy involving American troops was trumpeted with a disgusting glee.
From then through the Iraq War, every utterance and rant by a “peace activist” was prominently featured in the press, while any statement in support of American efforts were scornfully dismissed at “war mongering rants”
It continues to this very day, a biased, slanted, and lying media, feeling the onset of the fatal heart attack even while doing daily those things that will ensure their own death.
Sir, stop whining.


22 posted on 03/19/2009 4:56:14 PM PDT by CaptainAmiigaf ( NY Times: We print the news as it fits our views.)
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To: abb

I tried to wade through this seemingly interminable article. I understand the negative impact of focusing primarily on making money as opposed to providing responsible journalism. I was feeling that it was getting to be about time to mention the absolutely biased, left leaning reporting of events that has fouled the media.

That change from reporting to opinion shaping is the primary reason that I have no confidence in the MSM, especially rags like the N.Y. Times or the L.A. Times.
Just about the time that it began to register on me that this was a very, very long piece, I arrived at the part where the recommendation is that the government take over the newspapers.

The government? I thought that the government already had taken over the news. I certainly don’t want to legitimize that sureptitious arrangement. I would just as soon have these brainwashed excuses for journalists go and get a real job. Maybe working at Micky D’s?

All our enegies sould probably be directed to preventing the government from taking control of the internet. That effort is probably underway right now. I sure hope I don’t jeopordize any ships with these comments.


26 posted on 03/19/2009 5:00:21 PM PDT by SkipW
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To: abb

Let them die.


27 posted on 03/19/2009 5:38:40 PM PDT by bfree (Obamie the Commie-- FBO)
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To: abb
Although obviously an intelligent person, he can't be serious when he states that the founding fathers would approve of government ownership of the media. This would not be the case, particularly considering the far left (anti-American, in some cases) media that we have today. The horrendous performance of the media in this past election cycle was the final nail in the coffin for this bunch. Let them die.
29 posted on 03/19/2009 7:21:54 PM PDT by Major Matt Mason (The Kenyan Keynesian will bankrupt this nation.)
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