Why on earth would right-wing papers get a subsidy? Or, more accurately, why would papers that disagree with whomever controls the pursestrings at the moment get a subsidy? You don't even have to cut off a paper the payer doesn't like, just reduce their payout.
And why wouldn't Obama support it? Why wouldn't any President support it? Taking possession of the fourth branch of government is supposed to not be at all tempting to him? Are you still laboring under the delusion that he's something other than a politician or something? But, hey, even if you still think that's true, Bush III (hopefully only figuratively, but hey, who knows, Jeb's name keeps getting tossed about) or President Palin is only two or six years away from the Presidency, you know. You think they're going to resist this?
That's why this is so dangerous; he who pays the piper calls the tunes, and the tune calling need not be anything so crass as "Play X again"... it can be subtle nodding and gently manipulated suggestions from plants in the crowd. There is absolutely, positively no such thing as a free press sponsored by public funds directed by the government. Yes, I include all current press sponsored by public funds as well.
(Edit: If it makes you feel better, pretend I didn't say that Obama isn't more than a politician. I'm sorry I'm too cynical to believe in the myth; just pat me on the head and move on.)
Care to cite any references? What about the BBC and (Australian) ABC? Both have been huge thorns in the side of their respective governments over the years. In the case of the ABC, they definitely lean towards a liberal editorial view and this was maintained throughout 12 years of the previous conservative government's rule.
He who pays the piper calls the tune. If you think you've found a place where there's an exception, you haven't correctly identified the payer.
I don't think jerf was making an empirical claim - a "free press" dependent upon political financing and governance is a contradiction in terms.
Contrary to jerf's assertions, however, it seems to work both ways: It provides news that is often carefully balanced and 'factual' and there are also formats that pursue a political agenda and publish inconvinient stuff.
Because America is still a democracy and he would be voted out in the next elections and the guy who promises to end the subsidy would be voted in if the people do not want the newspapers to be subsidies.
Newspapers started their economic decline well before the Internet. And television, which gave newspapers something called COMPETITION, is the reason.
Now, television is not going to do the job of a great newspaper. But a great newspaper doesn't do the job of a great library. Or a great interconnected electronic mesh of information we all seem to be getting easy access to these days.
Newspapers are nothing special. If people want it, it will be there when then the dust settles.
A-and I'm not sure there's much the President can do to avoid right wing papers calling him a socialist, subsidy or not, but at least under this scheme a paper's right wing (or left wing) editorial board could then plausibly claim that their opinions reflected a considered take on the news, and that they were paid only (mostly?) by the blind subsidy rather than by some corrupting influence like a right wing (or left wing) political machine.
For profit news may be in trouble, but journalism will be okay. Most people don't want informative journalism from foreign bureaus...they want confirmation of their biases from Fox News or MSNBC.
The liberal bias of PBS is a matter of what topics they emphasize and which facts they select. One small example of many - Frontline has done several documentaries about atrocities committed by American soldiers. But it has never done a documentary about how ultra-strict (by any standard, of any war, ever) rules of engagement have caused the death of soldiers. I could come up with dozens of similar examples. The only way to realize the extent of PBS's left-wing bias, is to actually read intelligent right wing sources, like Powerline, View from the Right, or Unqualified Reservations. Otherwise you'll never know the stories and facts that you are missing.
Personally I've always felt publicly financed media is just a bad idea. The WSJ is just looking for a way to survive, and is willing to throw their supposed libertarian/free-market principles under a bus to do so. Can't blame them given that there's been public funding for liberally-slanted news for decades.
Only a small fraction of NPR's and PBS's funding come from government, and most of that doesn't even come from the government directly, but from another nonprofit, the CPB, which in turn receive federal grants.
Whatever government influence is present in the existing public broadcasters is negligible and is entirely diluted by the influence of civil society in general.
The article is pretty vague as to what it's proposing, but it seems to be suggesting much more direct political funding of the press, and not just broadcasters, but newspapers.
More importantly, the author is suggesting that the government should consider funding the press because without new sources of funding, the established press will become extinct. In other words, he's advocating setting up a system in which the press is dependent upon political funding for its survival. This would be an unprecedented situation, and would generate conflicts of interest unlike anything we have now.
If newspapers do still provide the highest-quality journalism, despite no longer being the most convenient sources of mundane information, but the end result is that newspapers can no longer sustain their business model, then the value of journalism may be grossly inflated.
If few people actually want newspapers, it's not a significant problem if they go away.
Each country has millions of sources of private-sector income, but only one government. There's the occasional potential for conflict of interest when a news outlet has to report on the doings of its own parent company, but news stories about news companies are quite rare and news stories about the Government happen every day.
Another example would be newspapers which rely upon real estate advertisements for a large portion of their revenue; you won't see an article that's critical of the real estate industry in these papers.
Wikipedia actually has a really great breakdown of the funding.
If the U.S. government wants to have a government-run newspaper corp, then fine. Have it wholly funded by newspaper sales, then I have no problem. But as soon as general tax revenue is used to fund it, then forget it.
As to your point about the source of funding... Given that most written news is moving online, would you support a tax on internet service to support written journalism?
I have to say I strongly disagree. Subsidized press will just encourage more conflicts of interest in coverage of politics, will waste taxpayer money, and is unlikely to result in better journalism.
About newspapers losing money, I suspect the main reason for this, and the reason nobody mentions is that newspapers and media companies in general borrowed through the nose to buy out other papers to reduce competition. It is the interest payments for all that borrowing that is causing most problems in the top papers.
Otherwise a paper that gets large viewer ship online should not have any problems funding news gathering.
But nevertheless, it is disturbing to see this in the WSJ. That means it is seriously being pushed. I hope Obama does not support it, there will be no profit for him in it, the right wing papers will use this to once again call him a socialist while still pocketing their subsidy.