Gov't/News Merge Urged By Congress Critter.

**Gingersnap** · 12-03-2009, 12:36 PM

Struggling media will need government help: US congressman
Dec 2 04:35 PM US/Eastern

The newspaper industry is suffering "market failure" and the government will need to help preserve serious journalism essential to democracy, an influential US congressman said Wednesday. "The newspapers my generation has taken for granted are facing a structural threat to the business model that has sustained them," said Representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California.

"The loss of revenue has spurred a vicious cycle with thousands of journalists losing their jobs," he told a meeting on journalism in the Internet age hosted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Waxman, who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over the FTC, said the "depression in the media sector is not cyclical, it is structural."

"While this has implications for the media it also has implications for democracy," he added. "A vigorous free press and vigorous democracy have been inextricably linked.

"We cannot risk the loss of an informed public and all that means because of this market failure," he said.

Without endorsing any proposals, Waxman noted various proposed remedies, including new tax structures for publishers, providing non-profit status, changing anti-trust regulations or eliminating a law that bars owning a newspaper and a television station in the same city.

Acknowledging that talk of government support for the press raises "red flags," Waxman stressed it is not the job of Congress to "deny the evolution of media."

But "as we look at these various solutions, government's going to have to be involved in one way or the other," he warned.

Really? Why? If I want the government's view on any issue, I'll just turn on PBS or NPR. :mad:

Breitbart

**linda22003** · 12-03-2009, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by Gingersnap

Really? Why? If I want the government's view on any issue, I'll just turn on PBS or NPR. :mad:

That's kind of a broad brush; we watch the News Hour because they are very good about having a conversation with people from both sides of an issue.

**ralph wiggum** · 12-03-2009, 01:06 PM

Originally Posted by Idiot Waxman

...The newspapers my generation has taken for granted are facing a structural threat to the business model that has sustained them...

Then the business should change or die.

**linda22003** · 12-03-2009, 01:32 PM

Exactly. We're at a time when newspapers have to reinvent themselves or die. The Washington Times is in the process of doing both. It's laid off almost half its staff and will be a free giveaway at a few downtown locations.

**AmPat** · 12-03-2009, 01:50 PM

I'm thinking of starteing a telegraph business. I demand gov't intevention. We cannot allow the telegraph to fail!

**lacarnut** · 12-03-2009, 01:54 PM

Liberal critters like Waxman should take a dose of their own medicine to include tax breaks for small business . You know, the ones that create 75% of the jobs.

Liberal newspapers that print mostly biased news are failing because readers do not want to read their crap. Let them fail if they can not adapt. That's what happens to other segments of the economy.

**linda22003** · 12-03-2009, 02:29 PM

Originally Posted by lacarnut

Liberal newspapers that print mostly biased news are failing because readers do not want to read their crap. Let them fail if they can not adapt. That's what happens to other segments of the economy.

Actually, they're all struggling because of demographic changes; younger people simply don't read newspapers and have never been in the habit of doing so. The Washington Times, which I mentioned above, is by no means a liberal paper, but it's circling the drain now.

**Gingersnap** · 12-03-2009, 02:52 PM

Originally Posted by linda22003

That's kind of a broad brush; we watch the News Hour because they are very good about having a conversation with people from both sides of an issue.

But the slant is whatever the Boomer authority perspective says it is and this is coincidentally usually whatever the public schools and government outreach agencies are also preaching. Let's face it, the Boomers are The Man at this point in time. When you question authority today, you are automatically questioning mainstream Boomer views and this is all NPR and PBS run.

News "papers" have run their course. News agencies still have a lot to offer. The beauty of the Internet is that the reader isn't confined to one major viewpoint driven by demographics. Neither NPR nor PBS should get public funds, let alone other media outlets.

Why should I subsidize some white, middle-class Boomer's unflagging interest in racial guilt, social justice, and sex over 60? :p

**linda22003** · 12-03-2009, 02:56 PM

Originally Posted by Gingersnap

But the slant is whatever the Boomer authority perspective says it is and this is coincidentally usually whatever the public schools and government outreach agencies are also preaching. Let's face it, the Boomers are The Man at this point in time. When you question authority today, you are automatically questioning mainstream Boomer views and this is all NPR and PBS run.

Oddly enough, I don't have any problem with that. :p:D I expect it will be that way for most of the rest of your life.