Obama: We Need To Bail Out Newspapers Or Blogs Will Run The World
Yael Bizouati and John Carney|Sep. 21, 2009
Obama yesterday expressed concern at the sorry state of the news industry and said that he will look at a news paper bailout, because otherwise, blogs will take over the world, and that would be a threat to democracy, The Hill reports.
"I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said.
He said he would be happy to look a bills that could give tax newspapers tax-breaks if they were to restructure as 50 (c) (3) educational corporations. One of the bills is that of Senator Ben Cardin, who has introduced the "Newspaper Revitalization Act."
This strikes us as the worst kind of protect the horse and buggy policy imaginable. Newspapers have been printing money for 100+ years, and if the market is now putting an end to that, stifling this change probably isn't a good idea. Back in May we came up with 10 one-line reasons this kind of bailout is a terrible idea. Briefly, they were:
* It's bad to reward outdated businesses based on outdated tech.
* Newspapers delivery trucks don't run on water.
* Traditionally bloated monopolies, newspapers don't know how to innovate.
* Just because newspapers go away doesn't mean sources will.
* Newspapers employ just 0.2 percent of the nation’s labor force.
* 66% of people get their news from TV.
* Newspaper owners think Google is a parasite.
* Ask people when they last bought a paper, much less subscribed.
* A government subsidized "free press" isn't a "free press" at all.
* As newspapers go away, a shrinking supply of ad inventory will drive up ad prices, rewarding innovative new media.
Obama yesterday expressed concern at the sorry state of the news industry and said that he will look at a news paper bailout, because otherwise, blogs will take over the world, and that would be a threat to democracy, The Hill reports.
"I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said.
He said he would be happy to look a bills that could give tax newspapers tax-breaks if they were to restructure as 50 (c) (3) educational corporations. One of the bills is that of Senator Ben Cardin, who has introduced the "Newspaper Revitalization Act."
This strikes us as the worst kind of protect the horse and buggy policy imaginable. Newspapers have been printing money for 100+ years, and if the market is now putting an end to that, stifling this change probably isn't a good idea. Back in May we came up with 10 one-line reasons this kind of bailout is a terrible idea. Briefly, they were:
* It's bad to reward outdated businesses based on outdated tech.
* Newspapers delivery trucks don't run on water.
* Traditionally bloated monopolies, newspapers don't know how to innovate.
* Just because newspapers go away doesn't mean sources will.
* Newspapers employ just 0.2 percent of the nation’s labor force.
* 66% of people get their news from TV.
* Newspaper owners think Google is a parasite.
* Ask people when they last bought a paper, much less subscribed.
* A government subsidized "free press" isn't a "free press" at all.
* As newspapers go away, a shrinking supply of ad inventory will drive up ad prices, rewarding innovative new media.
Comment
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Comment by Marklar on September 26, 2009 at 12:20am
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Nothing wrong with saying republic or democracy just that when we fail to recognize that a republic is a form of democracy though all democracies are not republics we belabor the semantics without being constructive.
My take is pretty obvious to my mind. The eilites don't like being taken to task by the people involved in citizen journalism therefore they must re-invigorate and retool their dying and untrusted media in any way they can. As ever, democracy is what they fear and not what they are defending no matter what they assert. Top down authoritarianism has it's place (in the military for instance) but is not how we want to live out our everyday lives as sovereign citizens of a constitutional republic.
It is rather revealing that the must fund their propaganda machine in order for it to survive in the marketplace. The lack of demand shows how worthless their lies and celebrity distractions have become to the people. It shows people really are waking up and taking notice of the world around them even if the change is slow.
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Well democracy is the false system by which people think they have a say in government rather than being ruled arbitrarily.
But seriously democracy is NOT mob rule, a republic is a form of democracy. The right and left has been drilled with extremist myths of all kinds and this is one of those myths that remains persistent even amongst those who are otherwise awake. At one time a democracy and a republic were thought of as two different things but such usage is archaic. Democracy in modern usage means you get to vote. A republic means it is a democracy in which you vote for representatives rather than voting directly on issues. Forget that stupid shit they've tried to program you with in order to make you mince words with other Americans an polarize the populace. Word games will not save a democracy OR a republic. Pure mob rule democracy would suck but so would that moron Plato's idea of a republic. Neither of those has ever truly existed though so we are better forgetting them as models for the words we use. We define words by the way in which we use them NOT ideologues, English professors, or grammar nazi's. If their dictionaries cannot keep up they are worse than useless, they are propaganda.
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Comment by Tara on September 23, 2009 at 3:42pm
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How can blogs be a threat to democracy?.... but then again the true definition of democracy is mob rule, so I guess we must be taking the mob out of their rule and they're scared now because the truth is spreading like wildfire!
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