First and Foremost, Produce a Quality Product That the Public Wants
[guest post by Dana]
Government-run media is not the answer to saving journalism:
What we need now are three major shifts. First, we need to pursue a program of fresh near-term media policy reform. Second, we need a new paradigm for media — an ambitious longer-term transformation in funding and ownership. And third, we need an immediate harm-reduction response for reporters and smaller media entities at grave risk.
The writer then proceeds to detail the first point:
On the first count, we should look to civic media models like the one proposed by communications scholar Robert McChesney. Drawing from participatory budgeting and inspired by economist Dean Baker, McChesney’s idea for reform is a local government process where citizens vote on how their county or city’s government media budget should be directed. McChesney proposes a news media voucher program — the Citizenship News Voucher — which, as he wrote in 2010, would make it so that “every American adult gets a $200 voucher she can use to donate government money to any nonprofit news medium of her choice. She will indicate her choice on her tax return. . . . A government agency, possibly operating out of the Internal Revenue Service, can be set up to allocate the funds and to determine eligibility.”
—Dana
Hello.
Dana (8e902f) — 3/20/2024 @ 5:49 pmOMG, a post from Dana that I agree with unequivocally.
qdpsteve again (d21d39) — 3/20/2024 @ 6:00 pmThe apocalypse is surely nigh! 😉
Nah! What we need is a Department of Information. It will operate one newspaper and one televised 24-hour news program, both accessible on the internet. We can call the newspaper Truth and the televised program News.
The Secretary of Information will be a member of the Cabinet, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. All the personnel will be Civil Service.
It will be the duty of every citizen to immediately report any noteworthy event to tip lines established by the Department and to keep themselves current on news reported by both outlets. Statistics will be kept on every individual’s reporting as well as reading and watching time and they will be assigned a Social Participation Score on those bases.
nk (229c7b) — 3/20/2024 @ 6:21 pmWho is this Jacobin? A Chinese AI? Tik-Tok offshoot?
nk (229c7b) — 3/20/2024 @ 6:24 pmThe problem with the so-called “news media” dates back to Homer (for lack of earlier known history) and it is that it does not report news, instead it tells stories which might incidentally, but not necessarily, relate to actual events.
nk (229c7b) — 3/20/2024 @ 6:29 pmAnd I’m sorry to say that is what the public wants.
nk (229c7b) — 3/20/2024 @ 6:30 pmNot a new idea. Just another bad idea from Democrats — you know, the party that isn’t crazy like those Republicans.
Local Journalism Sustainability Act
lloyd (f2c6c5) — 3/20/2024 @ 7:54 pmGovernment should produce a quality product themselves.
Kevin M (8676e4) — 3/20/2024 @ 8:28 pmnk (229c7b) — 3/20/2024 @ 6:21 pm
To maintain the public’s interest and attentiveness to the news, the massive wall-screens in each home shall be permanently active with two-way capability.
Kevin M (8676e4) — 3/20/2024 @ 8:31 pmIn order for rules like this to succeed, they need 24/7 propaganda and coercion
“The [ Advanced Clean Cars II ] rule establishes a year-by-year roadmap so that by 2035 100% of new cars and light trucks sold in California will be zero-emission vehicles, including plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The regulation realizes and codifies the light-duty vehicle goals set out in Governor Newsom’s Executive Order N-79-20.”
When Soviet 5 year plan agricultural collectivization plans resulted in western allegations of millions of Soviets starving to death, it was necessary for the state run media to help the people understand that it 1. never happened and 2. was a rousing success anyway. If the Soviet government had not been able to previously save the journalism, the Soviets would have been seen as all hammer, no sickle. Western lies about days long lines to receive small loaf of bread and a moldy potato would have gone unchallenged
steveg (155c5a) — 3/20/2024 @ 9:26 pmOne of the great failures of Soviet propaganda was the children’s movie “Mikko from Tampere Asks for Advice” much of which was filmed in Finland, inadvertently showing that Finns were enjoying a much much much better lifestyle than the Soviets had portrayed. Turns out Mikko’s family doesn’t share an apartment with several other families, they have their own house with indoor plumbing.
steveg (155c5a) — 3/20/2024 @ 9:49 pm6:
If it bleeds, it leads. As old as history indeed.
Soronel Haetir (5dff4c) — 3/20/2024 @ 10:02 pmThe site which displaying Dana’s linked article is appropriately named.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about Jacobins:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobin_(politics)
norcal (5ce52e) — 3/20/2024 @ 10:46 pmGovernment supporting news media is almost as bad as news media supporting government. Breaking up news conglomerates for being monopoly is better then funding newspapers. What they don’t want you to know is news what they want you to know is propaganda.
asset (04857b) — 3/20/2024 @ 11:48 pmTechnology has made it so that we have 100M “journalists” out there tweeting, blogging, posting, and opinionating….but with zero commitment to any sort of journalistic ethics….or a commitment to the truth. Their motivations span the gambit.
Everybody has an opinion….but many aren’t tempered by objectivity, a deep factual understanding, or an appreciation of complexity and nuance. Bias is the norm these days, even at large news organizations (especially?). We produce a lot of propaganda to the point where there’s not much trust in anything. The noise floor has been raised. People retreat to their bubble and we have significant pockets believing ridiculous things…despite good information being out there in abundance. Is more noise really better?
Many subjects are also very complicated, the health care/insurance arena comes to mind. When 100M people yell, whose voice actually gets through? The most hysterical? The best financed? The most popular? The most honest? There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle and certainly no quick government fix…..especially with government currently being so toxic and consumed with self interest. We as a people need to care about the truth…or at least pursuing it….rather than being subserviant to a tribe or ideological bias.
Sometimes your adversary has a point…maybe we should acknowledge it from time to time. A lot of times people are just ignorant…or trolling…or arguing in bad faith. How much time should we be spending with those people?
AJ_Liberty (7b2b55) — 3/21/2024 @ 4:56 amBack in the mid-90’s I was at a college reunion when one of my old professors asked me “So, this Internet. If everyone can publish information, how will people be able to tell facts from lies?” And I didn’t see the problem. Then.
Kevin M (8676e4) — 3/21/2024 @ 9:05 am@14: One of the better aspects of the hard Left is a demand for a free press (and often, for plenty of guns).
That makes it so sad when they then talk about how they want a superstate running everything. As if power of that sort can be controlled by the voters. It’s only when power is distributed and separate from government that the State and Power can control each other. But get them to see that.
Kevin M (8676e4) — 3/21/2024 @ 9:09 amMy neighbors have bought into elitism their party. They believe they are the smartest and best. They are, of course, Democrats because Democrats are the smartest and best, and the candidates chosen by their party are the absolute smartest and best of an already elite group.
steveg (aad46e) — 3/21/2024 @ 9:25 amThis also goes for the Democrats in the media. They are the smartest and best we have in our democracy and we must trust them. My town is about 70% D to 30% R and other. Most deep blue urban areas seem to have total buy in to the “elites within the elite” delusion.
That’s how we gifted the world VP Harris and we’d love to gift the planet President Gavin. It’s a deep and dangerous delusion because neither of those two are elite.
@18:
People talk about anti-woke. I’d settle for anti-smug.
Kevin M (8676e4) — 3/21/2024 @ 9:35 amKevin
Good observation
The smugness level is huge.
People here who wonder how anyone could vote for Trump might change their minds after 2 minutes in conversation with some of these folks.
steveg (21c272) — 3/22/2024 @ 8:52 amOnce you hear the words “our democracy”, its on. You’ll realize that the word “our” is limited to the smug urban democrats who are the elite. I also see these sad semi conservatives, usually nevertrump who consider themselves to be intelligent thought leaders with a place amongst the elites trying to keep their invitations to the cocktail parties and its sad because as soon as they try to rise above their “place” as useful puppet in the charade of working together, the knives come out and they are destroyed. So some other dupe steps up and gets the same treatment
I walk away thinking I’m gonna vote for Trump just to counter balance this smug lunacy.
Re:”…A lot of times people are just ignorant…or trolling…or arguing in bad faith. How much time should we be spending with those people?”
“Those people” have extensive exposure to our vaunted education system – you know – it’s the one that consistently crows about developing critical thinking skills.
John Boddie (dcf99c) — 3/23/2024 @ 8:16 am