Things like this make me sad. Flat out sad - depressed that the solution for every transformational change in our country is trending toward GOVERNMENT BAILOUT. In this op-ed, Columbia University president Lee Bollinger argues, as the title says, "Journalism Needs Government Help."
On the contrary. As Bollinger's first paragraph nails it,
"We have entered a momentous period in the history of the American press. The invention of new communications technologies—especially the Internet—is transforming the human capacity to speak, perhaps as monumentally as the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. This is facilitating the largest and fastest expansion of global economic growth in human history. Free speech and a free press are essential to a dynamic economy."
The internet and blogosphere have brought an amazing wealth of information onto the EveryMan's desktop, allowing us to read the opinions and analysis of those who actually KNOW - without needing to have it filtered through reporters who don't. We don't need a state-run press corps.
I tried to write a piece explaining how absurd I find Bollinger's editorial, but to be honest I'm just too mad/depressed/shocked to write it. Do I really need to explain that there isn't a single mainstream media source on the planet who has provided the value added in simple tidbits that an unheralded blogger like Economics of Contempt gleamed from actually spending the time reading the 4000 page Lehman's Examiner report? Do I need to explain that there isn't a single mainstream media source on the planet who provides analysis and interpretation of economic data on the level of Calculated Risk Blog? I can assure you that there is not a single business writer at the NY Times, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC or the WSJ who understands market structure and trading dynamics the way that I do.
Mainstream media is suffering because there are other people who do their jobs much better than they do. Full stop.
I guess I'll just quote Jeff Harding's response on The Daily Capitalist:
"What Professor Bollinger is saying is that he wants us to pay for news from journalists he thinks we should read, not what we think we should read. As a law professor he is an expert in first amendment issues. If he is an expert then he is the exemplar of the problem with scholarship and intellectualism in America today. He obviously distrusts our ability to make choices about the news we wish to read and he is eager to supplant his judgment for ours. If he believes that forcing us to pay for news services we don’t want is the key to Constitutional freedoms and freedom of the press, then we are in trouble because he is in a position to do something about it."
So depressing...
-KD
9 comments:
Well, said, KD. We offer perspective on matters where we have real world experience. We also offer opinions, which may be right or wrong, but make our writing more interesting to readers.
A free press can never be free if it relies on revenue from the government.
Pravda was a great news source if you only wanted the governments view.
Mainstream media is suffering because *there* are other people who do their jobs much better than they do
doh - thanks anon (THERE)
What the mainstream media doesn't understand is that before the internet, they weren't getting paid for content. They were getting paid for access. Advertisers paying to access consumers. Consumers paying to access news.
Newspapers that had slightly better content received a premium in value, but the whole industry was supported based upon the value of ACCESS. There is little difference between most headline articles on the NYTimes, vs the Washington Post, vs reading the press releases made by whatever the article is referring to.
Once media lost monopoly access to both advertisers and consumers they saw their business die. Why? Cuz the work involved in 99% of their operations really didn't provide a lot of additional value.
Granted this stuff subsidized investigative journalism... but the sports, politics, business news can all go away. It serves little added value.
What Jon said. I look at some of my interests, especially soccer, barbecue and coffee. 30 years ago, if I had to depend on my local papers (Fort Worth Star-Telegram / Dallas Morning News) to learn anything about these subjects, I would have to wait until some sports/food writer to get around to talking about it. The chances that european soccer would be mentioned by a writer in 1980 is virtually nil, and would the product would be so uninformed and generic as to be useless.
Just look at ESPN's treatment of the Lebron James article they killed a couple of weeks ago - ESPN needs to stay in the NBA's good graces, and the NBA needs Lebron to be unsullied. Is this the kind of journalism we need to subsidize? If your career depends on access, and your social life depends on getting invited to the right parties, you aren't going to do your job as vigorously.
One more comment - I can't help it! I literally snorted when I read this:
"To take a very current example, we trust our great newspapers to collect millions of dollars in advertising from BP while reporting without fear or favor on the company's environmental record only because of a professional culture that insulates revenue from news judgment."
Is he really this deluded? Hey Professor, one of the things driving the use of the internet to communicate is the fact that people do not trust "our great newspapers." Somebody needs to climb out of their ivory tower...
Great post. This thought occurred to me while reading it: Given that the 1st amendment protects us from government intervention into religion and vice versa as well as preserving a free press, how would be government investment in the press constitutionally/philosophically different from a state-run or state-sanctioned church (albeit operating in the material/temporal realm)? For that matter, how are NPR/PBS substantially different from a state-run church? I'm not being rhetorical here, I'd genuinely like to know...
The inability of media (newspapers, specifically) to accurately cover complicated stories with the proper depth is only a symptom of a larger problem, in my opinion. The problem is the inability of newspapers to develop the proper vision to figure out a way to make money in the digital model. As traditional advertising fades, so does profit for these newspapers. Less profit equals tighter budgets and fewer people to do more work. The end result? Half-baked news stories about important, complicated topics. I don't doubt that the reporters and columnists you mentioned are smart and talented. I just don't think they have the time to do a proper job.
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