Media want a handout

Increasingly rejected in the marketplace as irrelevant, media elitists want a government bailout to keep them in business.

That's the long and the short of a manifesto on the subject by Leonard Downie, the former executive editor of the Washington Post, and Michael Shudson, a sociologist, in the Columbia Journalism Review this week.

Not surprising, of course. The newspaper industry is in its death throes.

But what's interesting about the Downie-Shudson report is the justification for taxpayer support for the news business.

"News reporting that holds accountable those with power and influence has been a vital part of American democratic life. …" they write. "That journalism is now at risk, along with the advertising-supported economic foundation of newspapers. American society must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reporting – as society has, at much greater expense, for public education, health care, scientific advancement and cultural preservation, through varying combinations of philanthropy, subsidy and government policy."

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What's remarkable about this statement, besides its audacity, is the recognition by Downie-Shudson that American journalism actually has a vital role in American society – and it has to do with serving as a watchdog on powerful institutions. Of course, this is what I've been trying to tell my colleagues for many years. I've been writing and speaking on this subject and trying to persuade them that, if they will only recognize the central role of a free press in a free society is to serve as a watchdog on government, increasingly the most powerful institution in our society, the American people would reward them directly with subscriptions and advertising revenue.

The only alternative, of course, is to appeal to government to coerce money from the people. Sadly, that's the option Downie and Shudson have chosen.

I speak with some experience and authority on this subject – more than either Downie and Shudson.

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Not only do I share Downie's background as a corporate executive running daily newsrooms in major markets and Shudson's experience in academia, I also left those worlds and tried out my theory in the real world. You are reading the result of that experiment that was begun 13 years ago. It's called WND. It's profitable, influential and dedicated to serving the central role of a free press in a free society, serving as a check and balance on government fraud, waste, abuse and corruption and a watchdog on other powerful institutions.

Not only do good newspeople not need bailouts from taxpayers, it would be counterproductive. It would spell the end of the free press in America, its birthplace.

Journalism needs to be independent. The Founding Fathers understood this principle and carved out special constitutional protections for the press. The First Amendment is the only government help American journalism needs.

Go on the take from government and you become dependent on government. Go on the take from government and you become its slave. Go on the take from government and you cease to be a watchdog. Go on the take from government and you become its lapdog. Go on the take from government and you become a public-relations servant of government.

It would be better not to have any newspapers than to have only newspapers on a government subsidy. I think Thomas Jefferson would agree with me.

In fact, if the corporate media world fails, I believe the marketplace will answer the bell and fill the vacuum. But if government artificially fills that vacuum with an official "public press," the 200-year experiment in self-governance that is America will be finished. That's how serious this matter is.

That such a proposal would come from journalists is shocking.

If you guys need a job that badly, change your line of work. Don't further corrupt the vital institution of the free press.