It’s hard to imagine how American media could get any worse.
One surefire way to do it would be to make journalists and media outlets wards of the state. Can you imagine a media that relies on government to get funded and paid? They already act like activists and this would only encourage them to do so.
This would basically make all of the media like PBS and NPR.
The Washington Examiner reports:
Top journalism school pushes taxpayer funding of reporters and media outlets
As the death spiral ravaging local news picks up speed, eliminating one-third of all newspapers since 2005, calls are growing for taxpayers and corporations to cover the costs of reporters and media outlets.
Arguing that the Founding Fathers treasured a free press and protected it in the First Amendment, those urging federal and Wall Street action said it is the only way to preserve democracy.
“The founders of our country believed a free press was vitally important to our democracy,” said a new report on the dying industry from the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University.
The just-issued State of Local News report charts the decline of local media and predicted it will get worse without an infusion of cash.
“There was both good news and bad news for local journalism this past year. The good news raised the possibility that a range of proposals and programs could begin to arrest the steep loss of local news over the past two decades and, perhaps, revive journalism in some places that have lost their news. The headlines on the bad news resoundingly conveyed the message that urgent action is needed in many venues — from boardrooms to the halls of Congress — and by many, including civic-minded organizations and entrepreneurs,” the report said.
If you think you hate the media now, wait until your funding their paychecks. This is an absolutely horrible idea.
