Obama Appointee Suggests Radical Plan for Newspaper Bailout

FoxNews ^ | Thursday, April 16, 2009

[Joiseydude]

Influential Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks has hung up her journalistic hat and joined the Obama administration, but not before penning a public proposal calling for some radical ideas to help bail out the failing news industry.

But critics say her proposal would spell an end to the independent media and make journalists reliant lapdogs.

"The day that the government gets involved in the news media you see the end of the democratic process, because an independent news media is absolutely essential to the success of a democracy," said L. Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group.

[Kansas58]

How about we get someone in Congress to propose a TAX!

A TAX on NEWSPRINT!

Whereas the production of newspapers causes trees to be cut down, hauled by polluting trucks to polluting paper mills, and hauled from paper mills to publishers and

Whereas the production of newspapers requires toxic ink and solvents and energy wasting machinery and

Whereas the distribution of newspapers requires the use of dirty internal combustion engines and

Whereas a large portion of every landfill is used for discarded newspapers,

Therefore:

Be it resolved that a Newsprint tax, of $1,000.00 per pound, be charged to EVERY newspaper with a daily subscription, within the United States!
________________________________________
We should get some Republican to propose THIS as an amendment to any “cap and trade” or “carbon tax” proposal that comes up!
Maybe we can make it like “Cap and Trade” and use the revenue generated, from this tax on dirty dinosaur newspapers, to subsidize a tax credit for home computers and digital devices?
Or, we could use the money to subsidize talk radio! Well, those guys really don’t need any help!

[TheLawyerFormerlyKnownAsAl]

and make journalists reliant lapdogs

Like they're not already?

[jveritas]

But critics say her proposal would spell an end to the independent media and make journalists reliant lapdogs.

As if they are not already super reliant lapdogs for Obama and all the other socialists in power. The media supports Obama more than he supports himself, that is the simplest way to portray the media.

[wastoute]

Hell, the gummint might as well be paying "journalists". They are doing it for free now. At least if they were getting paid they would be "professional". SOrt of like the difference between a whore and a prostitute.

Molon Labe!

[Vaquero]

Right Bam bam....have the federal government fund your propaganda machine....
....maybe you can find a Joseph Goebbels to run the media after you ‘SAVE’ it.....

[VR-21]

If this gets any broad acceptance, then the American public has been stupidified beyond help.

[Interesting Times]

Greedy Marxists. Isn’t it enough that the Party effectively controls the old media?

[InterceptPoint]

:because an independent news media is absolutely essential to the success of a democracy ..."

LOL. How very long ago it was that we had anything like an independent media. If the U.S. Government owned the NYT and CNN would their editorial policies be any different than they are now? Sadly I"m afraid not. Time to let the NYT die or be bought outright by Murdoch. Now that would be a hoot. We could rename it the Fox York Times just for laughs.

[BenLurkin]

This can't be for real.

What possible justification could there be for taxpayers supporting newspaper's that nobody wants to read?

[penelopesire]

Exactly! They are already ‘lapdogs’!!

But if the government gives the corrupt American Meida our hard earned money..it’s RIOT time!!

That will be the final straw for me! The marxists/facists democrats are going to shut down talk radio and then steal our money for the corrupt American media? I don’t think so!!

[Texas Fossil]

Unbeliveable, this could only come from a former reporter:

“Years of foolish policies have left us with a choice: We can bail out journalism, using tax dollars and granting licenses in ways that encourage robust and independent reporting and commentary, or we can watch, wringing our hands, as more and more top journalists are laid off,” she wrote in her parting column on April 9.

Brooks said this would help rescue the industry from a “death spiral” and left the government unaccountable to the journalists who must keep it honest. “[I] can’t imagine anything more dangerous than a society in which the news industry has more or less collapsed,” she wrote.

[COUNTrecount]

But critics say her proposal would spell an end to the independent media and make journalists reliant lapdogs.

MAKE journalists reliant lapdogs? They're killing me with their humor.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

This Rosa Brooks is one total Commie/Pinko....as if the liberal media wasn’t the Pravda already.....

[Tarpon]

So why not just use NPR, they don’t have an audience ...

[org.whodat]

and make journalists reliant lapdogs

Like they're not already?

Bingo!!!

[SandWMan]

This proposal comes as no shock to some of us.

[org.whodat]

Actually newspapers are not in the news business they are in the advertisement business. When they have no advertisement dollars coming in they are out of business. And those public service announcements you have heard for years are nothing more than another type of business welfare as well. Paid for by you the tax payer.

[massgopguy]

During the 1980’s I worked at ATEX. We made Pre-Press Systems. One of our customers was La Prensa in Nicaragua. Ortega’s wife was on the E-Board. When the Sandinista took over she announced they were shutting down. When the others asked who would speak out against the government, she said, “now that the right people are in power there won’t be any”.

[Political Junkie Too]

The First Amendment gives the People the right to a free press, not the NYT the right to exist forever.

If the NYT fails, the People will form a new press to take its place.

-PJ