{"id":209781,"date":"2010-01-21T16:08:13","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T21:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2010853989_thedemocracypapers.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-01-21T16:08:13","modified_gmt":"2010-01-21T21:08:13","slug":"the-democracy-papers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/209781","title":{"rendered":"The democracy papers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Model for news will still exist \u2014 with necessary changes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Robert McChesney and John Nichols undermine their own argument for governmental subsidies for struggling newspapers [\u201cSubsidies necessary to keep a free press for a free nation,\u201d Opinion, Jan. 17] when they say \u201cthere is no known way a free and self-governing society can survive without credible independent journalism.\u201d Because this is true, because news is essential, there will always be a viable economic model for the news industry \u2014 if news organizations are willing to make the necessary changes.<\/p>\n<p>McChesney and Nichols claim that government subsidies are compatible with journalistic diversity, and support their view with a survey claiming that the subsidized media of Northern Europe are the freest in the world.<\/p>\n<p>This claim is challenged by American author and gay activist Bruce Bawer, who \u2014 after living in Europe for several years \u2014 wrote in \u201cWhile Europe Slept\u201d that \u201cjournalistic diversity in Europe is largely illusory and blatantly ideological in its slant and in the selection of events and details. By American standards the [media\u2019s] cumulative ideological range was quite narrow \u2014 from one end of the left to the other.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDead tree\u201d journalism \u2014 the journalism of the newspaper on the front porch \u2014 is indeed endangered. But tens of millions of Americans willingly pay substantial monthly fees for cellphones, cable television and Internet access \u2014 and if their only source for the local daily news is via an online newspaper, they will pay for that as well.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 Stephen Triesch, Shoreline<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben Franklin omitted<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>McChesney and Nichols got the founding father wrong in their guest column. The correct analysis is to recognize Benjamin Franklin for his guidance of freedom of the press and speech.<\/p>\n<p>Before his involvement with government, Franklin ran a printing business. To expand his printing business he bought a bankrupt newspaper. He had no noble cause involved in printing some kind of truth and instead he printed rumors he picked up in business meetings and at times he even made up his own stories. People liked his stories and his printing business expanded. Newspapers are in the same printing business but are writing stuff fewer and fewer people find interesting.<\/p>\n<p>Most businesses are conducting paperless business as part of going green. Newspapers want to go the other way and print more. Why? Then the ultimate question: Who gets to choose who would get a subsidy \u2014 maybe I will start a paper to get a government check.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 Dennis Helgeson, Kent<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Model for news will still exist \u2014 with necessary changes Robert McChesney and John Nichols undermine their own argument for governmental subsidies for struggling newspapers [\u201cSubsidies necessary to keep a free press for a free nation,\u201d Opinion, Jan. 17] when they say \u201cthere is no known way a free and self-governing society can survive without [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}