This is a recipe for a complete liberal/socialist takeover of all news media. Tax revenues indeed. More funds for NPR? And we all know how well allowing "foundations" to take over certain responsibilities works out: no matter how conservative their founders were, they are inevitably taken over by socialists and other Left wing types. Examples: Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, countless others whose money is being spent in a way that would cause the originators of the fortunes being spend to spin in their graves.
In the past, this approach was commonly known as the Ministry of Propaganda.
I must have missed the /sarc marking. Of course, if your rag of a newspaper isn’t profitable, just get the gummint to subsidize you with taxpayer $$. Jeez.
I am a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and this article marks an overt admission that the so-called “objective journalism” model that we were taught to aspire to (all of the winks and secret handshakes notwithstanding) finally is dead.
These authors are asking the US government, which already is running deficits at a previously unimaginable rate, to take more money from we, the people, to give it to a propaganda arm, and to allow tax-exempt contributions to these propagandists — at the same time that McCain-Feingold has made it illegal to contribute to political campaigns under certain circumstances. In other words, George Soros would be able to make massive tax-exempt contributions to The New York Times or another Democrat-Socialist propagandizer and the government would receive fewer tax dollars as a result.
At long last, Mr. journalist, have you no shame?
What a load of garbage.
There’s already a proven effective model for news reporting, it’s called “free enterprise”. Gather information that people are interested in , validate that it’s true, present the facts, and get paid for the gathering and presenting” process by means of subscriptions or ad revenue. The failure of the “news media” isn’t happening because there’s something inherently wrong with that model (just ask Rupert Murdoch), it’s because much of today’s media isn’t following it, and is generating BS propaganda instead.
Find the successful media (whether print, radio, TV, online, or whatever) and you’ll find the above model is working fine.
Translation: we want your money !
I am so sick of elites foisting their idea of "collective repsonibility" off on me. Just repeat after me guys at Wash Po: nobody owes you anything !<
Anyway, it seems to me that Americans, through their use of the internet to get news, are creating a new journalistsic ecosystem. It's just not the way these guys would like it, so they are going to use the power of government to sway things their way.
Nothing keeping them from doing so now, AFAIK.
The local liberal rag, the St. Pete Times, is I believe run by a non-profit foundation.
These are only a few of his remarks on that subject:
"The press [is] the only tocsin of a nation. [When it] is completely silenced... all means of a general effort [are] taken away." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, Nov 29, 1802. (*) ME 10:341
"Since truth and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts, the press confined to truth needs no other legal restraint. The public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions on a full hearing of all parties, and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of public opinion." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:381
"The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816. ME 14:384
"Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it." --Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1786.
And, finally, but by no means the entirety of Jefferson's thoughts on the need for freedom of the press, no matter how critical its views:
"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions."(Underlining added for emphasis) --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804. ME 11:33
Says it all.
All of the author’s argument can be boiled down to: we are failing in the free enterprise system and we want a government bailout!
a new model? does she have red hair?
“American society must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reportings.”
We do, have you noticed no one is watching the MSM news any longer except empty seats in airports.
Len, Mike...consider for a moment the Machiavellian possibilities of reporting the facts without fear, favor or affection, the way you’re supposed to.
Bookmark ping for later.