On Jul 25, 2010, at 1:41 PM, Fred B. Ellison wrote:
http://www.jeffjacoby.com/7734/does-the-press-deserve-a-bailout
Does the press deserve a bailout?
I think that government subsidization of the Press would be a terrible
mistake, kind-of like putting alcohol regulation in the hands of the
Mob.
Both the (paper) Press and the Post Office are now in financial
trouble. Originally, in this country, the Post Office and the local
newspapers were linked. The local Post Master was often a printer and
would use access to the post to reduce the expense of their paper
distribution. This is why Ben Franklin was a Post Master. Why not do
that again? Does it create a monopoly? Sure, but a natural monopoly,
just as the ownership of transmission lines does with utilities. And
we already know that people have alternatives for getting news: that's
what caused the problem in the first place. Having 100% of a dying
market is probably not a huge threat to the public, and it would not
yield 100% control anyway, but it might give an incentive for some
small papers to remain and for post offices to continue rural operation.
But, I guess the big questions is that if the Internet mostly destroys
the paper press, so what? The printing press did a serious number on
the Town Crier. It is not like the Internet is destroying the
reporting of news. Other outlets are developing to distribute that
information. Now, it is true that many of the Internet sources tend to
be secondary sources (they are re-reporting news gathered by someone
else), but if we let the free market act and a lot of those primary
sources disappear, then people will have a reason to pay for good
primary information and reporting. Right now, they do not.
I would like to look at ways to encourage local. grassroots reporting
of first-hand news, but I don't think we are the crisis point of
requiring government intervention, even if that were a good idea.
Sincerely,
Eric Vought
"Faith does not absolve us from trying to understand our world and
make moral distinctions with the eyes and brain given us. Religion is
as much responsibility as direction: Duty not Distinction."
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