Should local papers get a slice of the bail-out pie?
Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and
petitioned the state government to do something about it. “The media is
a vitally important part of America,” he said, particularly local
papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio
stations.To some experts, that sounds like a bailout, a word that resurfaced
this year after the U.S. government agreed to give hundreds of billions
of dollars to the automobile and financial sectors.Relying on government help raises ethical questions for the press,
whose traditional role has been to operate free from government
influence as it tries to hold politicians accountable to the people who
elected them. Even some publishers desperate for help are wary of this
route. — Robert MacMillan (Reuters)
I agree that media consolidation has hurt the profession of journalism. In a company in which the news is just one of many products, when the people making top decisions don’t have any particular loyalty to the free press (except when they can make money off it), we’re in trouble. (I’m not necessarily advocating the bail-out, just asking whether the arguments in favor of saving US manufacturing should also apply to those who create our news.)
Please, let them fail! This just opens the door for even more government or political control over what all of us know or don’t know about. President Clinton allowed TV, Radio and Newsprint to combine into huge media corporations and defeat or buy out their competition. Now, the main stream media is one source and we really have no choice as to where we get our info from and never an apposing view. Your only real alternative is the Internet or possibly talk radio. If these media giants fail, it will open the door to new or smaller media outlets and we will start to see a non-unified free press. IT WILL BE BETTER!