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Newspaper bailouts and state-run media
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by Susan Marie Kovalinsky | September 29, 2009 at 11:01 am
182 views | 4 Recommendations | 1 comment
There's been a lot of talk about Obama bailing out the newspaper industry, and that he is suggesting an official state-run media:
. . . Obama is poised to "bail out the newspaper industry," ushering in an official "state-run media."
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., has already introduced S. 673, the so-called "Newspaper Revitalization Act," providing the means. While most in the media already tow the official state line, Obama doesn't like those unruly blogs.
President Obama, remarking on the rise of the blogosphere, said:
"I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said.He said he would be happy to look a bills that could give tax newspapers tax-breaks if they were to restructure as 50 (c) (3) educational corporations. One of the bills is that of Senator Ben Cardin, who has introduced the "Newspaper Revitalization Act."
Some well-stated reasons that this would be an absurdly bad idea:
It's bad to reward outdated businesses based on outdated tech.
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at 11:56 on September 29th, 2009
The only way I would condone using public funds for a Newspaper Revitalization Act is if recipients agree to become electronic with the funds identified for this use and not given to them for general use arbitrarily.
I agree the issue is complex in the sense that we want to preserve reporting that is responsible and well researched. Blogs are subjective and might not have enough information, or even the correct information, so there is a problem with relying on blogs.
Personlly, I don't see much diversity in American reporting, and clearing houses for news like TV stations and radio are relying on independent reporting agencies and foreign news agencies for global news. The depth of news seems to be deteriorating every year. Like the sound bites and headlines on TV, a large portion of news articles are shorter responding to the short attention span of the average American reader. The vocabulary has become less erudite. I don't like to be pessimistic, but preserving what we have now doesn't seem to be worth it.