Seems like another problem that would be solved by introducing basic income. There are already people working on news reporting, Wikipedia and other public goods and services on their free time. Decrease the pressure to make a living (i.e. give people more free time) and you will have enough volunteers.

I don't think that people would suddenly start paying for higher quality news. The ones that can tell the difference can afford to pay now and generally don't.

I don't think he says that people start paying for it but more people will help cover news that aren't covered now.

> The ones that can tell the difference can afford to pay now

I'm having a real hard time trying to charitably interpret what you're saying here.

There's a little classist asshole-ness in my implicit assumptions, I admit. I don't think high quality news is expensive until you go into semi-verticals like WSJ.

It's actually the implicit assumptions about the people that can or can't afford "quality news" that made me raise an eyebrow.

> The ones that can tell the difference can afford to pay now

It implies that if you are in the group that can't afford, you're not in the group that can tell the difference. Which is indeed quite classist.

Additionally, it (directly) implies that people in the group that can afford, also can tell the difference. I'm not sure that's classist, but it's definitely a statement I disagree with. There's more then plenty of well-off people that don't care about "quality news" (and then some more with very questionable ideas about what constitutes it).

(and I upvoted you for admitting, btw)

Reason why I'm putting "quality news" in quotes is because I doubt there's a singular definition of "quality news" that would agree with me and everyone. Additionally, over the years I have seen (Dutch) news outlets vary greatly up and down in their "news quality" (from my own perspective), but their relative prices have pretty much stayed the same. For instance (and this is very much my own opinion, other Dutch people may differ), the free public (state-sponsored) news TV-broadcast has taken a dive in quality towards utter blandness, while certain commercial stations' news programs have been doing some pretty nice journalistic research here and there--whereas before did way more celeb/gossip topics. Certain of the established newspapers, both "intellectual" right as "intellectual" left, used to be quite good but nowadays leave me with a nasty taste of last-century bias (left/right is such an outdated concept in a globalized world where it can mean contradictory things), whereas I recently find myself turning to a (large) Christian newspaper because they've been reporting relatively well-balanced and not-too-opinionated stuff (they also happen to be one of the Dutch papers that are working with the Panama leaks).

    > I'm having a real hard time trying to charitably
    > interpret what you're saying here.

Presumably that the better educated are generally speaking the better employed?

For more background on the idea of "universal tax rebate," apparently the correct term may be "indirect subsidy." See the original proposal by McChesney and Nichols at http://www.thenation.com/article/death-and-life-great-americ...

An excerpt: "We begin with the notion that journalism is a public good, that it has broad social benefits far beyond that between buyer and seller. Like all public goods, we need the resources to get it produced. [...]

Just as there came a moment when policy-makers recognized the necessity of investing tax dollars to create a public education system to teach our children, so a moment has arrived at which we must recognize the need to invest tax dollars to create and maintain news gathering, reporting and writing with the purpose of informing all our citizens.

[...] Let’s give all Americans an annual tax credit for the first $200 they spend on daily newspapers. [...] In effect, this means the government will pay for every citizen who so desires to get a free daily newspaper subscription, but the taxpayer gets to pick the newspaper–this is an indirect subsidy, because the government does not control who gets the money. [...]

None of these proposed subsidies favor or censor any particular viewpoint. The primary condition on media recipients of this stimulus subsidy would be a mild one: that they make at least 90 percent of their content immediately available free online. In this way, the subsidies would benefit citizens and taxpayers, expanding the public domain and providing the Internet with a rich vein of material available to all."

For a collection of more "subsidy" options see: http://www.freepress.net/resource/98570/public-subsidies-and... . I'd love to see a free market succeed here, and maybe we should give it some more time — but I'm worried we may have already run out.

Interesting, but implementing this idea, doesn't that mean that the government still needs to determine what is and what isn't "really a newspaper" for purposes of this tax credit?

There's a pretty broad spectrum of stuff close to the edge but still obviously news of some sort (say, InfoWars), stuff that I'm not sure how to classify (Fortean Times, Playboy Magazine), stuff that probably is not "really news" like a Marvel Comic--but what about a cartoon publication that employs satire on current events? (say like MAD Magazine?)

(there's probably better examples than the ones I name, I don't live in the US so I only comment about publications that I have seen or heard about)

Damned interesting and thanks especially for the links.

I've been kicking around similar ideas, and it's interesting finding all the far better minds which have beat me to this.

Ironically, I find government funded news - e.g., BBC and the PBS Newshour - some of my most reliable news sources. The advantage of publicly funded news organizations is that they don't have to chase ratings (and they obviously don't).

While BBC is usually a decently produced news source, they still have levers than can be manipulated by the government. They were beating the war drum pretty hard in the run up to the war with Iraq after 9/11.

The BBC is not government funded, it is funded by a compulsory licence fee, and is independent. They have come under government pressure in the form of having their budget effectively reduced by the government resulting in a shrinking news department.

BBC news was not pro war in the run up to the Iraq war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Dossier#The_45_minut...

The government can change the rules on how the BBC is funded any time they want. They can also change how the BBC is governed and can influence the actual people currently governing the BBC without changing any rule. The BBC is obviously fully aware of this and would be very careful about crossing the government about anything really important.

If someone controls your budget you are not independent.

This is kind of an apathetic mid-90s defeatist attitude is I think easy but not particularly nuanced or helpful.

With that attitude nothing is independent: money has to come from somewhere. I think it's fair to say that every organisation has some amount of independence, some have money structures that allow them to have more than some others, and the BBC is an example of a situation where they can be more independent than an organisation that is more directly government funded.

The BBC is certainly pretty much independent of the folk who actually compulsorily fund it (£3.65 billion tax-free income via the licence fee) even if they never watch or listen to it.

The EU chip in a bit too. Not much as a % but it was £3 million of EU funds (i.e., European taxpayers who don't have a say in that either) between April 2011 and November 2013.

To some extent, but people from all sides have thought about this a lot in the UK, and other countries with a state television that is supposed to be as independent as possible. They are a lot more independent than most commercial outlets.

The biggest political influence is the board, not the budget. Since it takes a while to change the laws governing how BBC and similar agencies are run, I do not think the economics is the most interesting part.

The change from a Board of Governors to the BBC trust was a big one and not something done easily, so even there you have problems with affecting programming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Governors_of_the_BBC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Trust

That basically eliminates the concept of independence in media. As far as I know, all major media outlets are funded by some combination of government, corporate sponsors, and subscribers. I don't know of any profitable media outlet that does not have corporate sponsors.

> I don't know of any profitable media outlet that does not have corporate sponsors.

9 year-old girls, obviously.

Could not the government's ability to increase or decrease their budget influence their coverage? This is exactly the complaint against government funded news.

They are also not owned by billionaires with agendas or have to pay lip service to advertisers no matter what they do. News these days is but a joke and mostly simply public relations and propaganda, listening to it in my opinion opts you in to being coerced by other people's agenda. It's good if you are an idiot and need coercing to behave, but for people who can form their own opinions have no need for this.

BBC is going downhill lately

BBC suffers increasingly from D-notices (secret bans) on stories.

e.g. Unaoil scandal is glaringly absent from the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=unaoil

The BBC and every other mainstream media source, it seems.

I had never heard of this, and the only "major" source I could find was a Reuters wire story (that seems to not have been picked up by other media): https://finance.yahoo.com/news/iraq-probe-claims-unaoil-corr...

Honestly, from reading that, it's not clear why this would be a story worth covering. Corruption in Iraq is like rain in Seattle: Depressing, but barely newsworthy.

Yes D-notices are applied nationally in the UK.

Unaoil is not intersting for Iraqi corruption but the foriegn offshore multinatinational beneficiaries.

Deserving of a least a column inch - the obvious D-noting makes it a LOT more interesting from a UK perspective.

Here it is covered in The Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/01/authorities-...

Since D-notices are not legally binding, if The Guardian received one but chose to report anyway, I'd be very surprised if they didn't mention a D-notice - the times government have overstretched with respect to D-notices, it has usually caused a major stink.

Isn't The Guardian is now based in the US, since GCHQ ground up some of their computers ?

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-relea...

Nice catch.

Isn't The Guardian is now based in the US, since GCHQ ground up some of their computers ?

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-relea...

No.

The Guardian is wholly owned by a UK trust, and its head office remains in London.

The only thing that changed was that reporting of the Snowden affair was shifted to their US office. The Guardian pointed out to GCHQ in advance that it made no difference as they already had copies of the data elsewhere.

Furthermore, it was The Guardian itself who "ground up" their computers, as they refuse flat out a request to let GCHQ inspect the computers and do the destruction. Instead they agreed to destroy them in the presence of GCHQ staff, exactly because it didn't matter, and let them avoid legal liabilities. And frankly being able to put the story in the paper probably didn't hurt. From the article you linked:

'"Three Guardian staff members – Johnson, executive director Sheila Fitzsimons and computer expert David Blishen – carried out the demolition of the Guardian's hard drives. It was hot, sweaty work. On the instructions of GCHQ, the trio bought angle-grinders, dremels – a drill with a revolving bit – and masks. The spy agency provided one piece of hi-tech equipment, a "degausser", which destroys magnetic fields, and erases data. It took three hours to smash up the computers. The journalists then fed the pieces into the degausser.

Two GCHQ technical experts – "Ian" and "Chris" – recorded the process on their iPhones. Afterwards they headed back to GCHQ's doughnut-shaped HQ in Cheltenham carrying presents for family members, bought on their rare visit to the capital.

"It was purely a symbolic act," Johnson said. "We knew that. GCHQ knew that. And the government knew that," He added: "It was the most surreal event I have witnessed in British journalism."'

Their budgets have been squeezed for years now, the result isn't that surprising.

Less than everybody else.

Norway solved (or tries to, anyway) this with substantial subsidies for newspapers based mainly on circulation (as in, there's extremely little latitude for them to vary the subsidy if there's a paper they dislike without facing court cases). Unfortunately it's been under systematic attack over the years.

To be fair, newspapers arent the preferred medium for news these days.

Yes, but there's been no attempt at providing an equivalent mechanism for online journalism. If the support was just shifting into new mediums it'd be a different matter.

Who's been attacking this?

According to this article (in Norwegian) cutting subsidies has broad cross-party support: http://www.klassekampen.no/61942/article/item/null/presses-t...

More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_support

Thank you.

I disagree about this idea that local news is not profitable. What makes you belief this? Maybe very limited examples can qualify but it all comes down to having enough interested consumers to justify the expense. It has always been this way. With so many people posting stories to the net it likely the real need is an intelligent aggregator. From there a micro transaction system might arise that pays people based on views and such.

as for government, they already are too involved even in the US. Directly by manipulating what can and cannot be said as well using the threat of cutting off reporters who don't report as the politicians want. Indirect as journalist unions will guide donations to politicians who do what they want.

Universal tax rebate? While some may consider journalism part of the common good it does not mean it must exist to serve the smallest of groups. We have more journalism than necessary to get the news to all interested parties and much of it is free on the net.

Normally I would be inclined to agree, but where I live, in Ithaca NY, we have an all-volunteer online news source, The Ithaca Voice. It's probably more widely read than our two old papers. The Voice has been very diligent with reporting on crime, community developments, and as of late, the retrospectively obvious saturation of lead in our school water pipes.

So yes, while I agree that mainstream local news is broadly failing both itself and the general population, it is not an irreversible or geographically independent condition. Or maybe I'm full of shit and the only reason Ithacans read local news is because once you're here long enough you never leave, so you have some skin in the game.

You bring up a very good point. Towns with more long term residents are going to have a lot more people who feel the need/desire/interest to get involved. I live in New Jersey, and a lot of towns are filled with more transient folk. Partly because everything is on top of each other - if I move 5 miles away I might be 2 towns over.

The result is that I never planned on living in my current town for more than a few years and we just passed our 10th anniversary. Maybe it's time to get involved!

I would posit that all news companies (some legal definition) should be required to be non-profit entities. They could also operate with some portion of subsidization if necessary. The public allocation model would be interesting, if difficult to implement.

> I would posit that all news companies (some legal definition) should be required to be non-profit entities.

That's not really compatible with a free press. In terms of regulating the broadcast spectrum you have more latitude because its a scare public good. But I think you'll have a hard time getting Pinch Sulzberger and Rupert Murdoch to stop publishing.

Another view has it entirely consistent. Universal access to the press, not merely those who have sufficient financing, based on actual quality of product, not dopamine-inducing crap, could be an improvement.

Using the force of the state as an editorial voice is the opposite of a free press. I understand that a case can be made for what your saying, but make no mistake - it is a case against a free press.

This isn't the "force of the state". It's the capability of the state to channel funds into vital infrastructure and services the private sector does not, and can not serve.

We disagree profoundly.

That seems like a nightmare as far as freedom of speech goes, and an even bigger nightmare as far as enforcement goes. I mean, there are an awful lot of internet sites offering news, so would that mean setting up a blog reporting news to make money from ads would suddenly be illegal?

If they're subsidized, they know where that money is coming from, and they'll be less likely to report on the misdeeds of the government subsidizing them.

> government can control the news, which is a potentially worse scenario!

Many people think journalistic power should be open to anybody while physical power should be under government monopoly.

Yet a story, widely circulated, can ruin a life as thoroughly as a bullet to the kneecap.

If you think governments should monopolize sources of dangerous power, why not support a government monopoly on journalism?

how many signs do you need?

This is one thing I like about State Sponsored news. Here in the states, people whine about censorship all day and make a point to criticize whatever single party system sponsors said news, but that is just for government stuff. The C-Span type shit nobody cares about anyway.

For local news, regional, national news, and international conflicts, state sponsored news gets straight to the point without the sensation.

Plane went missing? Plane went missing and relevant details. Weather forecast? Its gonna rain.

keep it moving

>One potential solution is directly government funded news

Where does the government get its money to fund news? Either from the local population which is enforced support for an economically non-viable business or it can get money from other people who have no interest in the local news of another place far away.

If good local news is not profitable, then that means there is not enough interest to justify the cost of making good local news. This is not a failure of the free market to provide a critical public good. The free market is working exactly as intended, and what YOU call 'critical' public good, isn't really that critical, according to people who would actually consume said good.

And then you want the government to enforce your personal idea of what is 'critical' by forcing people to buy things they don't want.

Giving money to retirees, giving medical care to poor people, having an FDA controlling what companies are able to sell that might harm the public (long or short term), and other regulatory organs are not economically viable either. Should we abolish those?

"Free market" might be a fun catchphrase, but everything judged through one lens is extremely narrowminded.

My opinions: Abolish social security, abolish medicare, keep the FDA but allow unapproved treatments clearly marked as such(possibly require signing a document confirming they know it's unapproved, or require them to file some paperwork with the local government in order to allow unapproved treatments). Of course, you'll never actually get elected advocating the first two, since the elderly have a stranglehold on politicians.

A more electable opinion: Allow people to invest their government-mandated retirement accounts however they want: SS is required to be invested in treasury bonds, which are not what I would invest in.

We don't need the government propping up the news companies, either. Professionals can stay informed to issues relevant to their work by subscribing to a trade magazine. Local communities often congregate at a church or similar(abolish tax exemption for churches, while we're at it), and that's as good a place as any to talk politics or gossip about celebrities.

For purely factual local community items requiring action(new sidewalk repair ordinance requires 30% of houses to replace their sidewalk trees, there's an upcoming mayoral election, a real estate investor just bought the last empty lot in the city and is building a huge apartment complex, etc.) can be reported by the government through the city or county websites, or by mailing notices to everyone.

I also wouldn't mind a government-operated television channel, intended for government matters(the president making his state-of-the-union speech, results of elections, warnings about emergencies, a brief summary of recent Supreme Court rulings as they happen, etc.).

Let the people die, woo!

Literally the entire point of a safety net for individual people is to prevent people from falling into despair and dying (of starvation or illness) due either to poor decisions or pure chance. To remove said safety net is to say that you value having a bit more money over people's lives - you would prefer that people die than lose money.

To put that a way you might understand - humans have an almost universally recognised right to food, water, shelter and medical care because these things are really, really important. To deny people those things is to say that those things are less important than having a little more money. You can't seriously be saying that.

The parent can seriously be saying that. People believe different things, many people believe that they have no responsibility to other humans that they do not know. Further there are those that believe humans may be in someway responsible for other humans that they do not know, but that the government is absolutely the wrong vehicle to address this responsibility.

Personally, I think for people like that, who think that "taxes are theft" and that they shouldn't have to pay for stuff they don't agree with, that we should allow them to opt out of paying taxes and the entire social contract.

In exchange, they give up all police protection. If someone wants to rob them or kill them, no problem, it's not a crime and the police won't intervene.

If all Internet advertising were paid just by the billion richest people of the world (essentially: the OECD nations, mostly the US, Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia, NZ), the cost would net out to $20 per $30k of income (about the per-capita median).

If you wanted to cover all advertising, it'd be $100 per $30k. Or an 0.3% tax rate.

And no more advertising or advertising-supported crap.

We really don't need most news orgs like we don't need 1000 versions of Wikipedia.

The AP and my regions local press version of it are good enough and I'll be happy to fund them. If I need something deeper I pay. Like Bloomberg for example.

The rest of it is all entertainment and opinion which like the content of the porn industry/facebook/youtube/reddit (thanks to advertising) will always come for free.

I'll grant that we don't need locally developed news platforms. For all I care, local news could be distributed by reddit.

What we do need is some way to keep our local government and businesses accountable. We need reporting on that factory that's spewing waste which affects the health of 20 families. Or about that town government decision to buy cheaper water (and how it looks brown and might have lead in it). Or about that corrupt police chief.

If there is a local AP equivalent in your area that does this, then that's great. But in most areas this would not be profitable.

Someone needs to do this work, and if we want it done reliably and done well, it needs to be payed for.

Well...government does have mechanisms to address all those issues and keep itself accountable. And we do pay people already via our taxes to stay on top of these things. Do we need to pay the press too? I don't feel too happy about that.

Most of the issues you are talking about required the press to amplify them in the good old days. Today there are many more avenues for people to shine a light on stuff. I mean if a 9 year old has worked out how to get her message out others will too. And the role of the press as an amplifier will reduce. My sense is propping them up artificially might create other headaches.

Self-policing has never worked.

An external authority with an incentive to break news that matters is crucial.

>"What we do need is some way to keep our local government and businesses accountable."

Why must that be exposed as "news"? You should have that baked in, with repercussions for individuals that break laws/regulations within a public entity, etc.

Really, I think a lot of society's ills would be solved with adequate oversight and repercussions of public institutions and individuals.