Massachusetts Bill Set to Subsidize Newspaper Subscriptions

[Mr._Graybeard]

Graft and corruption and ineptitude exist everywhere - even the private sector.

ESPECIALLY in the private sector.

 

[justgladtobehere]

Graft and corruption and ineptitude exist everywhere - even the private sector.

But it's not a justification for the government to do anything. Nor, however, are those things automatic disqualifiers against government doing anything.

The better argument in this specific case is on 1st Amendment grounds.

Then why allow the most powerful entity in the country to engage in practices that allow for that and implicitly encourage it? So many of the responses are 'Well, there is always going to be something off' and throw up your hands on the air. How about stopping the very process that can create this corruption and waste? Other people (or entities) do it isn't a very good defense.

 

[Azrael]

Then why allow the most powerful entity in the country to engage in practices that allow for that and implicitly encourage it? So many of the responses are 'Well, there is always going to be something off' and throw up your hands on the air. How about stopping the very process that can create this corruption and waste? Other people (or entities) do it isn't a very good defense.

How do we explain the PBS NewsHour? Or Frontline? Or NPR news?

All publicly / government funded.

 

[Azrael]

As an aside, Norway, with lots of government money in journalism, ranks very high in press freedoms. Index

https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2021/norway

Faced with the consequences of lockdown measures, the government poured public funding into general industry support packages, and also instigated a special €30m pandemic press support scheme. Longstanding press subsidies still help support the plethora of local newspapers and a handful of national ones, and a relatively new initiative to support innovation adds to the existing scheme, making it comparatively wide-ranging and generous.

Public service broadcaster NRK retained its central position in the news landscape, as the most used news source offline, and the second most used one online (where weekly reach increased by 8pp) as well as the most trusted Norwegian news brand. While NRK retains a broad remit across platforms and seems to have strong public legitimacy, criticism of its online activities in particular by commercial providers continues, and the Ministry of Culture has launched a review which is due to report in 2021.

 

[The Big Ragu]

As an aside, Norway, with lots of government money in journalism, ranks very high in press freedoms. Index

https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2021/norway

Faced with the consequences of lockdown measures, the government poured public funding into general industry support packages, and also instigated a special €30m pandemic press support scheme. Longstanding press subsidies still help support the plethora of local newspapers and a handful of national ones, and a relatively new initiative to support innovation adds to the existing scheme, making it comparatively wide-ranging and generous.

Public service broadcaster NRK retained its central position in the news landscape, as the most used news source offline, and the second most used one online (where weekly reach increased by 8pp) as well as the most trusted Norwegian news brand. While NRK retains a broad remit across platforms and seems to have strong public legitimacy, criticism of its online activities in particular by commercial providers continues, and the Ministry of Culture has launched a review which is due to report in 2021.

No thanks. Norway is a tiny country. We have 10 metropolitan areas in the U.S. with more people than all of Norway. Norway is also unique. They discovered oil in the 1960s, socialized the production and have a sovereign wealth fund that has essentially kept 5 million people living in a way not possible in 99 percent of the rest of the world. They subsidize way more than newspapers in Norway -- on the back of their petroleum -- and it's the favorite go to of people suggesting the U.S. should be like Norway.

Norway is also not really the nirvana people think. When you go down that path of everything is FREETM, the government has got it, etc. etc., politicians tend to move onto more and more things having to be FREETM. As a result, Norway has taken that oil reserves gift. ... and somehow turned it into a growing debt load on the back of all the FREETM! It's now somehow living a fantasy, just like we are (which was largely based on currency debasement and beggar thy neighbor policies). That's just not a formula for a healthy country. You can delude people for decades with it. ... while setting yourself up for a miserable price that has to come due. Norway is already crossing that line.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/31/norways-sovereign-wealth-fund-loses-164-billion-in-2022.html

 

[Azrael]

`

No thanks. Norway is a tiny country. We have 10 metropolitan areas in the U.S. with more people than all of Norway. Norway is also unique. They discovered oil in the 1960s, socialized the production and have a sovereign wealth fund that has essentially kept 5 million people living in a way not possible in 99 percent of the rest of the world. They subsidize way more than newspapers in Norway -- on the back of their petroleum -- and it's the favorite go to of people suggesting the U.S. should be like Norway.

Norway is also not really the nirvana people think. When you go down that path of everything is FREETM, the government has got it, etc. etc., politicians tend to move onto more and more things having to be FREETM. As a result, Norway has taken that oil reserves gift. ... and somehow turned it into a growing debt load on the back of all the FREETM! It's now somehow living a fantasy, just like we are (which was largely based on currency debasement and beggar thy neighbor policies). That's just not a formula for a healthy country. You can delude people for decades with it. ... while setting yourself up for a miserable price that has to come due. Norway is already crossing that line.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/31/norways-sovereign-wealth-fund-loses-164-billion-in-2022.html

I'm not suggesting then US be like Norway.

I'm suggesting the 1st Amendment doesn't have to be a suicide pact.

 

[The Big Ragu]

`


I'm not suggesting then US be like Norway.

I'm suggesting the 1st Amendment doesn't have to be a suicide pact.

Putting aside the moral aspects of coercing people to have to pay for discretionary things that benefit others (which itself is a rights violation). ... again, no thanks. I don't want people who want to design things they don't even understand to be forking around with the most basic enlightenment rights -- like a free (from government) press.

Do you want Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump being sanctioned to make "subsidization" decisions (really any decisions that cross over into being able to pick winners / losers) regarding the press?

It's amazing to me that people insist on opening these barn doors. ... and then act shocked when the animals are running wild.

 

[Azrael]

Do you want Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump being sanctioned to make "subsidization" decisions (really any decisions that cross over into being able to pick winners / losers) regarding the press?

Of course not.

But again: PBS, NPR, the BBC. All do pretty great journalism. All already subject to Trump, et al.

And the press freedom index reference I made to Norway merely demonstrates the point again. There's a lot of public money in Norway's journalism. It ranks #1 in press freedoms.

The US ranks 42nd.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Of course not.

But again: PBS, NPR, the BBC. All do pretty great journalism. All already subject to Trump, et al.

And the press freedom index reference I made to Norway merely demonstrates the point again. There's a lot of public money in Norway's journalism. It ranks #1 in press freedoms.

The US ranks 42nd.

I'm sorry, but putting aside Reporters Without Borders or wherever you are getting that #1 / #43 thing from, it's not as if Norway is a bastion of freedom that the U.S. isn't.

Norway does not have news gathering organizations doing the journalism work of the scope that the United States does, and on an international level, the rest of the world does not turn to Norway for information the way it does from various U.S. outlets (We have good and bad here, as a truly "free" press does).

When you are looking at press freedom, you essentially have the democracies that have some kind of Constitutional press freedom guarantee. ... and you have dictatorial places in which an authoritarian regime is controlling information. Any gradient they are pointing out between #1 and #43 comes down to Norway being a relatively homogeneous country, with a tiny population and news organizations that are piddling relative to the U.S. For example, during the riots in the wake of George Floyd, you had police departments stepping over the line, so a journalist who was wrongly arrested might move the U.S. down a list like that. Norway doesn't have the diversity, the size, the economy, etc. to have those kinds of social problems, so of course those things don't happen in Norway to the extent they do here. Which is why you can even argue that the press is remarkably MORE free in the U.S. than a list like that would have people believe, because our free press has to stand up to a lot more than some of the homogenous Scandinavian countries that I am sure headline those lists.

 

[Azrael]

I'm sorry, but putting aside Reporters Without Borders or wherever you are getting that #1 / #43 thing from, it's not as if Norway is a bastion of freedom that the U.S. isn't.

Norway does not have news gathering organizations doing the journalism work of the scope that the United States does, and on an international level, the rest of the world turn to Norway for information the way it does from various U.S. outlets (We have good and bad here, as a truly "free" press does).

When you are looking at press freedom, you essentially have the democracies that have some kind of Constitutional press freedom guarantee. ... and you have dictatorial places in which an authoritarian regime is controlling information. Any gradient they are pointing out between #1 and #43 comes down to Norway being a relatively homogeneous country, with a tiny population and news organizations that are piddling relative to the U.S. For example, during the riots in the wake of George Floyd, you had police departments stepping over the line, so a journalist who was wrongly arrested might move the U.S. down a list like that. Norway doesn't have the diversity, the size, the economy, etc. to have those kinds of social problems, so of course those things don't happen in Norway to the extent they do here. Which is why you can even argue that the press is remarkably MORE free than a list like that would have you believe, because our free press has to stand up to a lot more than some of the homgenous Scandinavian countries that I am sure highlight those lists.

Again. PBS. NPR. The BBC.

All excellent journalism. All publicly subsidized.

I'm a longtime staunch defender of the free speech and a free press here and abroad.

I also believe the death of local journalism is a more immediate threat to our democracy than a secondhand tax pass-through to keep it functioning until we devise a new business model for it.

 

[Azrael]

Again. PBS. NPR. The BBC.

All excellent journalism. All publicly subsidized.

I'm a longtime staunch defender of the free speech and a press here and abroad.

I also believe the death of local journalism is a more immediate threat to our democracy than a secondhand tax pass-through to keep it functioning until we devise a new business model for it.

Which, as I've said many times here, is probably a non-profit in most cases.

 

[Azrael]

Again. PBS. NPR. The BBC.

All excellent journalism. All publicly subsidized.

I'm a longtime staunch defender of the free speech and a free press here and abroad.

I also believe the death of local journalism is a more immediate threat to our democracy than a secondhand tax pass-through to keep it functioning until we devise a new business model for it.

https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2022/dnr-executive-summary