Re: Setting the price of a free press

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Bob Frankston" <bob2-39 () bobf frankston com>
Date: August 22, 2009 10:33:44 PM EDT
To: <dave () farber net>, "'ip'" <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: RE: [IP] Re:   Setting the price of a free press

I don’t have easy answers for the future of journalism but I find many  
of the proposals I’ve seen more like patches to the current business  
models than rethinking journalism. Can we engineer a new system for  
news? What can we do to give new concepts in journalism a chance to  
arise? Is today’s journalism really that good compared with what we  
need for making intelligent choices?

Watching Jon Stewart on the Daily Show interviewing Betsy McCaughey  
raises some troubling questions about journalism. Who decides what  
serious journalism is? Why is a comedy show doing some of the most  
serious journalism?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/21/betsy-mccaugheys-ideas-ca_n_264970.html

As I see it the essence of journalistic integrity is the decoupling of  
the business/funding from the journalism so you fund the entity as a  
whole. This is similar to the marketplace structure I’m advocating for  
connectivity but, alas, I don’t have a magic formula because it’s a  
very different situation. Integrity is relative – there still may be  
an axe to grind but less about pandering to the audience and bylines  
make reporters aware of their own popularity.

Perhaps there is hope in lowering the costs of production and  
gathering news. Remember that today’s advertising model is based on  
the reduction in the cost of production in the early 1800’s that  
increased availability and made it more difficult to charge high  
prices for the news. Lower costs may allow more options for  
sponsorship but how much can we reduce the costs of people doing  
reporting to the point that it isn’t viable as a career choice for  
those who need to eat? Let’s not forget that a newspaper is a whole  
and it isn’t just a matter of aggregating reporting. How much is news  
vs. features?

We need to be careful about romanticizing journalism. I fear a future  
in which Fox TV is the norm but if you look back journalism was as  
much advocacy as reporting if not more.

We also need to recognize we are in a transitional period. I still get  
paper editions because they are convenient in the morning (and do a  
better job with comics). When I am at my PC with my large screen the  
online editions are easier to read.

I don’t have an answer and do worry that about both top-down funding  
and reporting to maximize the ROI of the news organization.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2009 20:27
To: ip
Subject: [IP] Re: Setting the price of a free press



Begin forwarded message:

From: Keith Bostic <keith () bostic com>
Date: August 22, 2009 5:58:57 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Setting the price of a free press
Reply-To: keith () bostic com

On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 3:58 PM, David Farber<dave () farber net> wrote:
> This is more than a slippery slope, it is a cliff. The same can be
> said of
> several major industries -- TV, telecom etc.. Shall we gut the anti-
> trust
> laws?

I don't think that's where he's going -- I think he's focused
specifically on "serious journalism", wherever that journalism is
produced.

That said, I think he's wrong.

First, let's agree the existing financial model of "advertising
supports news" is dead.  Advertising has left the building, and it's
never coming back.

Second, let's agree "serious journalism" is an essential part of a
democracy.

If newspapers are allowed to collude, then it's unreasonable for them
to remain for-profit entities.   You shouldn't be a monopoly and then
unilaterally decide how much money you'll make.

In which case... why not strip newspapers down to their public-service
functions (for example, get rid of advertising), and have them funded
as a public service by the public?  Congress can directly fund news
organizations, and we're done.

That said, the existing newspaper owners are unlikely to agree --
they're fighting hard, not to solve the problem of investigative
reporting in a democracy, but the problem of making money by owning a
newspaper.   Since the latter is a hugely difficult (if not
impossible), problem to solve, I doubt newspapers will survive.

--keith

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Keith Bostic
keith () bostic com




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