Not no, but HELL NO.
Comes now the government's proposal to bail out the flagging newspaper industry.
Come on-- really?
Is this one that hard to see?
Look, I've got newspaper nostalgia, too. My mother was a longtime reporter for a major newspaper, and I grew up a believer in newspapers. In fact, I was invoking her journalistic ethics when I was crying foul over the reporting of our President's "jackass" comment last week. (Good reporters respect "Off The Record.")
But even if you believed that our country had PLENTY of money to just give away (it doesn't), surely anyone can see that you don't want our newspapers to become beholden to the government that they're supposed to be critical of?
If the newspaper industry tanks, then I'm damned sorry to hear it. But that's free enterprise. The people will get their news, and evidently will have to seek it from other sources. But do NOT support the federal bail-out of your news sources, unless the idea of a weekly "Letter From Our Leader" column sounds good, along with White House review of editorial
The truth will set you free? Set us free from the Pravda.
Labels: competition, government, Gripes, in the news, liberal, Politics, thinking ahead, worry
posted by Matt G @ 8:55 AM
6 Comments:
Government subsidized vanity publishing. Ain't going to change their readership numbers.
Just more charity for commies.
Considering that reporters aren't even supposed to accept a cup of coffee from a source, I have to agree a government bailout seems to be a conflict of interest. I still believe newspapers are an important component of a free society, but nope, no bailout, I think.
Media is biased enough as it is, and tend to have rich corporate owners. One set wanting to control what you can or cannot do and not minding paying a bit of premium, the other wanting to add more situations where they can ignore your rights, not be controled themselves and want to pay less. You lose either way.
Aside from the blatantly obvious conflict of interest inherent in a government owning the media.
There's nothing to "revitalize". Papers are an economic dead-end, even if they went non-profit there's no way they could break-even in any sort of recognizable format.
Definite conflict of interest, but since they are already in the tank, what does one more broken law mean??? Not a @#$%^ thing... sigh...
Agree with Kristopher, they are already vanity publishers, THAT is why they are dying. The truth is available on the internet and cable and pretty much contradicts the front page each and every day.
I rather like my local fishwrap. It has what I'm interested in all in one place, and keeps up with local news and scandals. For national and world events, there's the internet.
I'd like to see us go back to the days (not so long ago) when each paper had an open and well-known political affiliation. 'The Globe" was the Democrat paper and "the Daily News" shilled for the Republicans, and both said so up front.
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