Reinventing Journalism?

It's no secret that the traditional, so-called "legacy" media, and in particular the newspaper industry, have struggled to remain competitive in a rapidly changing technological world (the bad economy doesn't help matters either). The old business models and methods of delivering news must adapt to an environment where consumers have myriad choices of where and when they can access information.

It's a challenge, no doubt. But it's one the legacy media should be able to meet without any help from government.

That's why it's unsettling to see a recently released Federal Trade Commission "staff discussion draft" that presents "potential policy recommendations to support the reinvention of journalism." Whereas most media companies discuss ways to exploit untapped markets through innovation, the FTC deep-thinkers have conjured creaky, top-down government solutions that don't venture beyond the box — or worse, get government involved in the news business.

The FTC emphasizes that this is "does not represent final conclusions or recommendations by the Commission or FTC staff; it is solely for purposes of discussion." But the ideas are disturbing enough to warrant being strangled in their infancy.

The recommendations include what you would expect — manipulating regulation and taxation to benefit the media.

This is the classic example of government putting its thumb on the scale to help an established segment of an industry overcome its upstart competition. Why do traditional print and broadcast outlets deserve such favor over blogs and online entities? And how would the government define a "news organization"? By its size or its age? Does The New York Times merit special rules over, say, Matt Drudge or TalkingPointsMemo's Josh Marshall?

Thanks, but we would rather beat them on a level playing field of ideas than have the referees act like it's the NBA Finals.

Then there are the truly hair-raising ideas, such as establishing a national fund for local news, employing AmeriCorps to train journalists, providing a tax credit to news organizations for every journalist they employ, (so this could "help pay the salary of every journalist") and providing grants to universities to conduct investigative journalism.

Where will the money for these subsidies come from? The FTC floats a few more trial balloons, such as a 5 percent surcharge on consumer electronics that would raise $4 billion or a 3 percent tax on monthly ISP-cell phone fees that would generate another $6 billion annually.

Imagine being taxed by the federal government to help keep the Old Gray Lady afloat!

If that's a bad deal for consumers, it's even worse for journalists.

Government money always comes with strings attached. If Washington assumes some responsibility for keeping reporters employed, it might have an interest in what kind of stories they're reporting. Subsidies become more than a lifeline to the media — they become weapons that government can wield to obtain certain results: Don't publish that critical story or we'll cut off your cash. That of course is anathema to the First Amendment.

The FTC ideas for the most part probably wouldn't do much to bolster the legacy media anyway. As media critic Jeff Jarvis wrote in the New York Post, journalism's future is "entrepreneurial, not institutional." If journalism is to be properly reinvented, it won't be by government bureaucrats.

REPRINTED FROM THE PANAMA CITY NEWS HERALD.

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