Backlash to any government subsidies

[Andria]

Just sharing:
The following turned up in my Google alerts, and I think it shows the
potential backlash that can happen with talk of increased public
funding of media. Same backlash happened with some of FDR's programs
at the end of the Depression. Problem is that the piece lumps all
kinds of media together, even some of the new independents that could
be considered the best of entrepreneur small business:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/4440-elites-push-government-funded-qpublicq-media

[Ross Williams]

Whether it is right-wing or left-wing, backlash from conspiracy theorists is not really going to have much impact. But central question raised by this article, is government funded media ever really independent, is a good one. The BBC  does a good job of representing the diversity of views among mainstream decision makers. But it was created to knit together an empire with a common British culture that all those decision makers share.

The United States does not really have that shared culture and our political life has much stronger partisan conflicts. Anyone who followed NPR's slavish shift to the right following Republican successes in the 1990's has to be skeptical of a similar model working in the United States. I don't think you can separate financial independence and editorial independence.  Even our nominally independent US Postal Service is not able to close post offices because of political opposition. The idea that a media dependent on government funding could be isolated from political pressure is unrealistic.

Ross Williams
Advocacy Technologies
twitter.com/rosscwilliams
www.northerncommunityinternet.org
www.grandrapidscommunityinternet.org

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[Josh Stearns]

The BBC is one model, and Ross’ point about cultural and political differences is an important one. We are currently wrapping up an in-depth analysis of nearly 10 other international public media models – looking specifically at how they construct their firewalls between funding and content. We are exploring what is working and what’s not and are complementing this with a content analysis that shows how different political and funding structures impact news output and coverage. We’re also looking at how public media interacts with commercial media in productive and competitive ways.

 

We hope this report will bring some hard data and analysis to bear on an argument that is often based on gut feelings and anecdotal evidence. More to come this fall. Happy to chat with anyone who is interested.

 

Best,

Josh

 

Josh Stearns

Associate Program Director

Free Press :: www.freepress.net

SaveTheNews :: www.savethenews.org

Twitter: @jcstearns

Phone: 413.585.1533 ext. 204

 

reform media. transform democracy.