Posted on 04/17/2009 6:06:45 AM PDT by RaceBannon
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.
Brooks, who has taken up a post as an adviser at the Pentagon, advocated upping "direct government support for public media" and creating licenses to govern news operations.
"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.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
If they propose this, we should stage anti-bailout demonstrations across the country. They will not get my tax dollars to bail out unfair, biased newspaper organizations.
This is a joke right?
Tough boogers, Big Journalism is NOT “too big to fail,” despite what Ms. Brooks may think.
I wouldn’t care one whit if “top journalists” were forced to start slinging burgers at Mickey D’s.
Any informed citizen should have seen this coming. break out the pitchforks.
I wish it was.
A government bailout (subsidy, partial buy-out) of the constitutionally-protected and independent (theoretically) free press must be unconstitutional.
Once the government owns part, like the auto companies and AIG, then they get to call the shots on executives and policies, right? How about editorial policy and editors???
Unacceptable. Unconstitutional. Mustn’t happen.
“[I] can’t imagine anything more dangerous than a society in which the news industry has more or less collapsed,” she wrote.
Gee, I can. How about a news industry that is patently in the tank for statism and collectivism?
Dimwit!
Where did our country go?
Government funded Newspapers will mean content is government approved only.
It’s that simple.
I vote for waving them bye-bye.
This is absurd. The end of the article has it correct. The market will determine.
I had to chuckle when I read the worry that it would end investigational journalism if print media failed. The only place any real investigational journalism occurs is currently done by the pajama patrol.
Any act supporting any of the press is an act in opposition to their competitors, and is, therefore, a violation of the first amendment.
This is all we need...The press in contractual agreements with the government. But, then who else is going to get the message out./s Disturbing.
“Some scribes are already closely bound to Washington. As jobs are axed and papers felled across the country, many journalists have sought work elsewhere. A number have gone to work for the Obama administration, including Chicago Tribune correspondent Jill Zuckman; Time magazine’s Washington bureau chief, Jay Carney; former L.A. Times reporter Peter Gosselin; and Warren Bass, once the Washington Post’s deputy editor.”
P.S. Welcome back Nachum!
Why should they be immune to layoffs in an economy where millions are losing their jobs because of badly run companies? NO MORE BAILOUTS! Especially for so-called journalists.
I don't believe they will actually do this... but if they do, it's pretty much time to start an armed revolution.
This is too funny!
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