This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Government Subsidies For Bloggers?
From The Daily Capitalist
I almost choked when I read Lee Bollinger's op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal advocating public financial support of the mainstream media. This is the Lee Bollinger who is the president of Columbia University and was recently named Deputy Chair of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The article says more about the writer and the mainstream media than does its subject matter. It is unbelievable and irresponsible that anyone in his position could seriously advocate subsidies for the press.
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.
He frames the debate in these terms:
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.
At the same time, however, the financial viability of the U.S. press has been shaken to its core. The proliferation of communications outlets has fractured the base of advertising and readers. Newsrooms have shrunk dramatically and foreign bureaus have been decimated. My best estimate is that there are presently only a few dozen full-time foreign correspondents from the U.S. covering all of China, despite the critical importance of that nation to our future.
Let me translate what he is saying: competition thrives because of new media yet since newspapers and television journalism has failed to innovate and keep up, we must subsidize them because their reporting is (was) better. He cites NPR, PBS, and BBC as the ideals of journalism. The common theme is that these services are all supported by government. Further, he suggests, as an instrument of foreign policy, we need to compete with China's CCTV and Xinhua news, and Qatar's Al Jazeera. If the BBC is the standard, then I urge you to actually listen to it as it drones on about what is happening in the UN or Mali today.
Professor Bollinger believes that press freedoms and government support are compatible, not antithetic. If anything in history is so obvious it is the fragility of freedom of the press. Of course this is something Jefferson and Madison fully understood and they thought they nailed down press freedom forever. As we know, the limitations of the Constitution were breached from the very beginning as Federalists sought to centralize power. While Wickard v. Filburn is not the only example, it is one of the most egregious cases that removed the limitations of federal power over almost any commercial activity as the case defined almost anything as "interstate commerce." It is also settled law that what the government pays for, it can regulate. Subsidies would open the gate wide to assaults on press freedoms.
When you think about Professor Bollinger's argument, he is turning the Fourth Estate into a public utility, a service deemed good for society that we must subsidize, direct to hire more reporters for foreign bureaus, and be "fair" in its reporting as must broadcast media. This is a phony argument and is a direct assault on freedom of the press. As one wag said in the Journal article's commentary page, "Article translation: 'We have to give tax money to CBS to help fight Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.'" And most bloggers. And if you don't think that is the case, then you better stop reading now.
He proves that the government is out to get the media it doesn't like. He says:
Both the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission are undertaking studies of ways to ensure the steep economic decline faced by newspapers and broadcast news does not deprive Americans of the essential information they need as citizens. One idea under consideration is enhanced public funding for journalism.
If you want to see the integrity of the "mainstream media," then I urge you to read this post by Cato's Jim Powell ("Bailouts for Journalists?"). He details the fawning reporting of Progressives, especially from the NY Times, over folks like Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, and Castro. Why would we expect a subsidized press to be any better?
Professor Bollinger is like an artifact left over from the New Deal when centralization of federal control over all aspects of the economy was in vogue (as in the National Recovery Act). He actually seems to despise press freedoms by advocating subsidies for mainstream media which is truly a slippery slope to government regulation. He distrusts market competition and he distrusts you and your ability to make choices about what information you wish to receive. He is a dangerous man.
I think I serve a valuable service by giving my readers a fresh, innovative view of the economy. Don't I deserve a subsidy, Professor Bollinger?
Who is so wise as to know what is good for all of us?
»
- advertisements -
"I almost choked when I read Lee Bollinger's op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal advocating public financial support of the mainstream media."
Of course... the WSJ is a taxpayer welfare ho' Rupert Rag...
After Murdoch, GE and Westinghouse Go Bankrupt and Lose Their Corrupt Assets...
Then come talk to me about a BBC style press...
One more forced tax payer bailout of corporate "L" for losers...
(like the taxpayer Wall Street bailout that paid for you losers jobs Santelli...) and we're getting out the pitchforks...
Capitalism means on an even playing field if you are a loser... you lose.
If you have the playing field tilted totally to your advantage and you lose and want a bailout... then you are a Robert "The Rube" Rubin.
Signed: Amerikan Joe, debt peon.
Walter Lippmann would be so proud. Go back and read his road-map for the information control state for old times' sake: http://books.google.com/books?id=eLobn4WwbLUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=wal...
Bollinger?
Isn’t he the nut jew who invited Ahmadinejad to speak at the Columbia University campus?
Hmmm...not worth the rants…
A Bollinger Bandaid
Vee vill tell you vat you ist going to read, and you vill like it! And you vill pay for zit! Qvestions?
Great article! Thank you!
Never watch American media. Horrible crap.
I'll take the BBC, CBC, TVO anytime.
Media for profit (and now consolidated profit) is a big part of the current American disfunction.
The US thinks it has a free press. It does not. Unfortunately Americans still think they do and actually listen to it without a built in BS filter.
Propaganda is most effective when those being propagandized don't realize it. Long live the corporate agenda, propogated through the "free press".
LOL, would you rather have a press that is a government lapdog that parrots the propaganda of which ever administration is in power.
You're talking here about the same New York Fed board of directors that has Denis Hughes, former AFL-CIO president, and GE's Immelt on it. No wonder we're in such a flipping mess.
VIDEO SUGGESTIONS: If you really want to see government/propaganda in action and how they use it:
Great Depression Era Propaganda Film: Selling Inflation to the People in 1933
www.theblogofrecord.com/2009/08/10/great-depression-era-propaganda-film-explaining-inflation-to-the-people-in-1933/
Century Of The Self: This is a Four part video, very long yet extremely well done and worth the time it takes to watch. It shows how they manipulate/target humans to... From WIKI:
The Century of the Self is a British television documentary film that focuses its attention on Sigmund Freud's family, especially his daughter and nephew, who exerted a surprising amount of influence on the way corporations and governments throughout the 20th century have thought about, and dealt with, people.
Part 1
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6718420906413643126#
'Great Depression Era Propaganda Film" Selling Inflation to the People in 1933'
Thanks!
Well, americans are already obligated to get medical insurance or face a fine courtesy of the new health(s)care bill, thus subsidizing the pharma-insurance-ambulancechasers triada. So why not subsidize the pro-goverment MSM shills as well? It's not like they're asking your firstborn or something...
This is funny. But, it's a bit much ado about nothing, in a sense, as the Feral Government took control of the press when it took control of radio and tv band transmission. Bollinger is just spewing out a way to keep the status quo intact until the idjits in Warshington can come up with a way to do the same with broadband.
Cheers,
If there is one thing worse than an idiot, it's an educated idiot. An educated idiot that furthers his education in idiocy by joining the Fed!
One more to lead us from perdition? God help us!
There are all kinds of fools. Danger to all from the smart ones.
Discussion question: If the government is truly vested in our ability to exercise our first amendment rights, then why the fuck are we constantly being told what sort of speech or ideas are right, wrong, or otherwise? The answer seems to actually be twofold...first, the government, and any of their private-sector cronies, don't give a shit about anything beyond bolstering their own staid position and having the capability to indoctrinate us in whatever way that they see fit...the net-neutrality flap ought to have been enough to lay that fact out as plain as the hair on my ass. The second part is that, by way of constant sensory-assault (mostly provided by Bollinger's most-exalted "advertiser base"), we've sort of given in as whole to being a bunch of dummies without the attention span that was bestowed upon dirt. In the context of the first part of the answer, no problem...idiots are happiest when they can just follow the shiny objects. Beyond that, handing a bailout to the traditional U.S. press follows in the fine traditions of TARP and QE...keeping alive a system that should be allowed to die under its own bloated weight, pure incompetence, and a lack of ability to keep up with the times.
Free market, free press...neither of them seem so goddamn free to me, anymore.
The Bill Of Rights is all about individual rights against or protections from the government. Obama is on record lamenting these "negative rights" and is an advocate of a "second" Bill of Rights which would outline all the stuff government has to give you (stuff that costs money). I'm not sure what his plans are for the "old" Bill of Rights but I'm pretty sure he'd like to amend it to just sex and shopping.
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/27/smells-like-socialist-spirit/
I hope people are starting to see a pattern here. This is yet another outline of all the glories that statism and central planning can deliver for you.
Here we have a glimpse of the hoped for future Ministry of Journalism but it's all the same story: experts know what's best for you-->lets have a government of experts-->shut up and pay your taxes and the experts will take care of the important things: providing Americans with the essential information they need as citizens in this case but also healthcare, education for your kids, what you eat, the proper amount of personal energy consumption, what kind of dwelling you should occupy etc. etc.
The government (run by experts of course) is your Mommy, your Daddy, your helping hand, your doctor, your counselor, your spiritual salvation and...your newspaper. What could be better?
That said I think programing on NPR, BBC and PBS especially in the past has, on average, been mostly superior to what has been (easily at least) commercially available. Even in the age of 1000 channels there's an awful lot of crap out there and promising, out of the way, documentary focused channels turn into reality show and info-tainment crap the second they get any kind of an audience - but maybe I just need o get the 10,000 channel package.
I think quality content on government supported media has less to do with the government and more to do with a shared, common culture that assumes a familiarity with and acceptance of certain values, history and educational standards. Now that American and Western culture is fragmenting and falling apart I think government affiliation would just ruin the material. The country is just too diverse (in the fully negatives sense) today and the common denominators too low.
USA = USSR
This is a prime example why I'm looking at other nations. I've read some history, I know how this game plays out. I don't like the idea of being in an Alaskan reeducation/work-camp. The Gulag Archipelago v2.
Oh I don't think it will work out that way at all. The Al Gores, Obamas and technocrats may literally destroy the country but they will never be able to achieve anywhere near the level of centralization they fantasize about. Even the technology that seems to enable them is ultimately a much greater threat to them. Small comfort I know but Mad Max is much more likely to be throwing his weight around in the future than Stalin.
America is no more special then any other nation, if it could happen anywhere it could happen anywhere just hte variables change.
For the big centralization you are not thinking IMHO. If I was them I would go through a Mad Max phase on purpose. I'll explain.
Americans are an armed, and ultimately belligerent people. Now as noted in the Prince it's very hard to disarm a population. It is also very hard to oppress a very well armed population, as the armed man is more likely to take up those arms when pushed to far (now I think man vs. tank is rough but you get the idea). So ultimately the arms must be taken from the Americans, but how? Direct confiscation will not work, it would trigger the revolt they are trying to avoid. So they must "want" to give them up. So the situation must be engineered for Americans to demand security and peace, and willingly hand in their weapons. So imagine a breakdown, the unprepared Americans will prey on each other. The image of Americans shooting Americans for food and fuel will be burned into the collective soul. The masses will cry out for security, but Uncle Sugar will make it a point that they must be disarmed for everyone's safety (IE Can't send in aid forces under fire). Once the precedent is set a nationwide disarmament can happen. And that's when the 'fun' can really start.
Not saying that's what will happen, just a possible avenue. And even if you are right, I don't like the idea of Mad Max. Since really would be more like the Road, even more terrible. If my choice is USSR, the Road, or door 3, I have to pick door 3. After all how much worse could it get behind door 3?
They tried that during Katrina. Didn't go over so well or work out so well.
Americans are being disarmed. ~22% of current prison populations are small time drug dealers or users that have no record of violence. Upon release they are 'convicted felons' and in the same lumpen as armed bank robbers, armed muggers, armed car jackers, et al.
They are all 'convicted felons', all their civil rights are usually restored except the right to own a gun.
Is a pot smoker more of a danger to society than a drunken driver, or an idiot chatting on a cell phone while disregarding traffic and causing a multiple car pile up?
Prisons were expanded to increase the number of felons and this is supposed to decrease the number of gun owners. An additional benefit is lots of new privatized jails for Whackenhut to create a new 'service industry' for profit. Win win for the gov.
You underestimate their arrogance and hatred.
http://theoccidentalobserver.net/tooblog/?p=2322
"advocating public financial support of the mainstream media. This is the Lee Bollinger who is the president of Columbia University and was recently named Deputy Chair of the New York Federal Reserve Bank."
Just another sign that the game is over. So sad.
They can subsidize it all they want, but they won't be able to make people read it. Newsweek magazine just sold for $1, and whoever bought it got robbed.
did it really go for a buck? i heard the harmon (of harmon-kardin audio) was selling, but a token transaction?
considering it's newseek, that's a most excellent bit of news!
This reminds me of an old Monty Python sketch (51 sec)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lSLzYKVd2s
"You're an encyclopedia salesman..."
Excuse me for wandering a little off-topic, but it's people like Bollinger who would shut down Wikipedia tommorow if you gave them the power. To me, Wikipedia represents what amazing results the co-operative efforts of people can yield (and at no cost to the common man). To people like him, it's a threat.
I remember some shills trying to pitch a pay-per-view online encyclopedia service created by "smart" people. Get bent.
MSM as we know it, dug its own grave and is better off dead. Here's proof: I can read just about anybody in the world for free right now, but everyday, I come here to read Tyler, and I challenge anyone to name someone better. If I were the NYT or Barron's I'd be begging for him to come work for me. Name your price, man. But do they? I doubt it. They sit there hoping he'll go away without ever realizing that the key to his success is that they suck at their jobs.
The saddest part is I'll bet it's going to happen. We've got a government that wants to lie and has no problem pissing away other people's money combined with herds of so-called journalists that can't think their way out of a wet paper bag. I now pronounce you man and wife.
mark,
be wary the wiki. one of the arguable failings of democracies is that they are often co-opted by motivated minorities.
in this same fashion, many blogs/forums (wiki?) are ultimately overrun by a persistent minority.
there's a whole controversy on the revisionism going on on the wiki 'naked shorting' page.
(fwiw, i'm hardly in favor of journalist subsidies, etc. - just wary of the wiki movement and opportunities for revisionism in general.)
if you're interested, relevant comments from the founder of one of the earliest large-scale forums:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/12/33338/3000
cheers
I liked that link. Good recommendations.
I think I understand the potential pitfalls of projects like wikipedia (and I am not dismissing your concerns), but I think Jimmy Wales is a real American hero and the system he and his people have designed a very good start. Nothing's perfect, of course. He prevents big corporations and government from white-washing their past and for that alone, I give him mountains of credit.
At the other end of the spectrum is McGraw-Hill, parent co. of Standard & Poor's, maker of textbooks. I have yet to hear of any pushback against them by teachers who's pensions have been lost (shhh-that's a secret) or the general population, who will bear the cost of their criminal negligence. What are the odds that they will ever accurately describe the nature of our financial meltdown?
Personally, I think I'd prefer history written by "amatuers."
Your points that people are corruptible and many have hidden agendas is not lost on me. But I still really like Wikipedia.
i wonder if honest credentials (vs anonymity) would help at all, or perhaps a way to distinguish between the sources of submissions. even if based on a ZH-like pseudonyms, the continuity of the author seems critical to the integrity of the content.
i suppose elaborate 'expert' fronts would be devised to circumvent that system... sigh.
i find that roaches seem to scurry from the light, so the threat of 'light' is useful, but then if the PTB don't like what's going on, that same 'light' might keep the truth in hiding. google used to be 'a-good-thing'. i use 'em, but don't trust 'em at all anymore.
instead of a credit score, perhaps we need an integrity score :^)
to be sure, i use wiki often and comfortably for the fact-oriented content. however, when the topic gets subjective, my (tin-foil) 'agenda sensor' goes on overdrive.
and don't get me started on the traditional publishing industry. may they rest in piece(s). i'm with you there.
i'm quite alright with amateurs writing history, especially from each side's perspective, such that all facets are available. it's when the professionals co-opt the entire vehicle, but it still *looks* like the amateurs are involved, that we have a problem.
for instance, that very illusion seems quite robust with respect to the amerikan representative republic mechanism...
The issue isn't so much brainpower as it is cowardice.
If you won't pay me to be your Ron Burgundy the government should make you pay me to be your Ron Burgundy! Ron Burgundy is respected. Ron Burgundy has gravitas and no one can deliver the news like Ron Burgundy can deliver the news!
Agreed. They run away from controversy and wonder why no one likes them.
On the bright side it would get ride of the pretense of a "free press". The MSM is already a mouthpiece for the Gov, though I'm a little disappointed the CIA could push some of that heroin money into Mockingbird. Come on guys! I know running a worldwide criminal empire is expensive but can't you spare some drug money for the MSM?
"The MSM is already a mouthpiece for the Gov"
Ok, maybe. Or maybe the government and the msm are owned by the same individuals/organizations? In which case the msm is the propaganda arm and the state is the muscle. I see no reason to seperate the msm from the government. I only see cause to seperate the government from law, and from us.
They run money, people, and press releases through the media all the time.
But even the KGB couldn't withstand the tidal wave of malaise that drowned the old Soviet system.
Oh I have no doubt the they are heavy involved in the media. This goes back to me being upset at the new tactic, not even trying to hide their crimes. Might as well come out and say "We have so little respect for you that we are going to do our crimes in the open, because you can't stop us"
At least in "the good old days" they would try to conceal their crimes, instead of bragging about them. The arrogance is killing me, especially since it hasn't blown up in their faces.
+++
and i fear our impotence has been verified.
maybe we'll see this november. not holding my breath.
I think I will tell HIM how I feel....how 'bout you?
General Inquiries or To Contact the President
Phone: (212) 854-9970
Fax: (212) 854-9973
Email: officeofthepresident@columbia.edu
Total waste of time. If they did not listen to the people about health care... or the bankster bailout... do you really thing they give a shit about you.
Those who CAN, . . . do
Those who CANT do . . . teach
His words . . .
Free speech and a free press are essential to:
a dynamic economy. At the same time, however,
Essential to a "dynamic economy?"
Hold on Charlie Brown, a free press is essential to:
FREEDOM!
It IS NOT essential to a dynamic economy!
And while there may only be a few staff "correspondents", there are exponentially more free correspondents as these antique, legacy behemoths crumble into the dust -
compete! or or become extinct.
A nice cut right thru the BS. Congratulations.
Sure has taken a long time from the Department of Education to get to the Department of Media. You certainly can't control what they think if you don't control what they read!
This was long coming. The ruling elite intends to preserve and defend the US mainstream media by all means. They own it and they control it. It is their propaganda mouthpiece. Without controlling mainstream media, the ruling elite will lose its grip on power and lose their privileges. They just cannot afford it. For them, it is a matter of survival.
An independent media, God forbids, might provide US citizens with truth and question government lies. The elite and oligarchy cannot afford it.
This is absolutely necessary tool to move to and maintain the American society in a totalitarian regime.
The patriot Act was a giant step to abandon the US Constitution and civil liberties. Now, this process started to accelerate.
"The ruling elite intends to preserve and defend the US mainstream media by all means. They own it and they control it. It is their propaganda mouthpiece."
Here, here! Best analysis of the day...
Truth hurts, caconhma...
Exactly.
And now that the Government is in charge of all student loans, they can assure that accolytes of the "Progressive" movement have money to fill the ranks at Journalism departments at Universities.
They ignore and scoff at the very real charge of a propoganda machine that would make Goebbels blush, it is THEIR agenda so it couldn't be wrong or immoral.
THEY are in the right, and are going to save us from ourselves.
Only THEY have the intelligence and worldliness to steer the nation's information.
Their frustration and this idiotic call for a federally subsidized press comes from the surge in talk radio and Internet communications and the death of the liberal newspapers and magazines.
PBS and NPR are quite enough subsidized biased media, thank you very much.
++
have we gotten to critical-mass yet? how fixable is it?
otherwise we're toast.
Freedom of Speech, Bitchez!
It's enough to make you throw up--that the WSJ would print such garbage.