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Public Funding of Journalism Is the Only Way (www.hamiltonnolan.com)
submitted 9 months ago by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/usnews@beehaw.org
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[–] ptz@dubvee.org 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

My only concern with that, which is likely shared by others, was addressed beautifully in the last paragraph of the article:

The second common objection is “Impartiality! We don’t want the government’s dirty money tainting the news!” Okay. Time to get over that. It is possible to insulate journalists from public money at least as well as they were insulated from the private money of advertisers. If your position is that public money will irrevocably taint journalism but the biggest companies in America buying ads will not, I submit that you have not thought about this issue very deeply. Furthermore, there are already existing examples of states funding journalism, evidence that the nature of this problem is dawning, at least in progressive states.

That is a very good point to which I have no counter-argument. In fact, if we look at BBC as an example, they're publicly funded and maintain high credibility and a high degree of press freedom.

TL;DR: Public funding definitely won't make the situation worse, and there is evidence that it would improve things. I say give it shot.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That is a very good point to which I have no counter-argument. In fact, if we look at BBC as an example, they’re publicly funded and maintain high credibility and a high degree of press freedom.

while i haven't looked into it particularly, i'm also sure there are ways to de facto public-fund media while still creating separation from the state if you're really worried about that. like, there probably isn't just the single way to publicly fund media and you have to either accept that model or not publicly fund media, right?

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

while i haven't looked into it particularly, i'm also sure there are ways to de facto public-fund media while still creating separation from the state if you're really worried about that.

It's not so much that I'm worried about it personally; it's just more of a general concern for public trust given our current divisions. I just figure that, regardless of the party in power, half the country is going to call it a propaganda arm at any given time. OTOH, we already have that division with private journalism, so I guess nothing would really change much?

I think you're right on the money (pun intended) that it would have to be a de-facto funding with clear separation from the state. This is where I feel BBC does well, at least with world news.

like, there probably isn't just the single way to publicly fund media and you have to either accept that model or not publicly fund media, right?

Oh, I'm sure there are multiple feasible ways to do it - I just don't know what/which, specifically, would be necessary or best. The funding part is a bit out of my wheelhouse as that's not something we really covered in the journalism electives I took all those years ago. lol

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 6 points 9 months ago

oh i should probably be clear i'm using generalized language here and more building off of your point than responding to you specifically, lol

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I think that the fear of government censorship or bias in publicly-funded media can also be allayed by taking funding decisions for it away from legislative bodies, and allowing citizens to directly vote on funding, so that it's not about appealing to whoever the current administration is.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

and allowing citizens to directly vote on funding, so that it’s not about appealing to whoever the current administration is.

my worry with this is that it's not obvious there's public alignment with the kind of journalism that's needed and the kind of journalism that's wanted, and further that this directly incentivizes attempting ideological capture of the media (which is part of what's gotten us here).

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

But then we're back to insisting on some amount of government influence in the media. "People won't vote to fund the correct, 'necessary' media, so we need the government to decide what the necessary media to fund is."

Ultimately, trusting in democracy means you have to trust people to choose what's best for themselves (with protections against those choices hurting others). Sure, people might not agree that a certain type of media is valuable, and that's fine.

Who, if not the media consumers, do you think should determine what kind of journalism is "needed"?

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ultimately, trusting in democracy means you have to trust people to choose what’s best for themselves (with protections against those choices hurting others).

well then i think the disconnect here is pretty simple: i absolutely don't, and i think the past few years have borne this out repeatedly. i think it's trivial to mislead people into voting against their best interests and that the public voting in a way that harms them has been a repeatedly-occurring, inarguable problem in most existing democratic states throughout their history. so i have no issue with this.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Misinformation does not discredit democracy, it discredits the state apparatus that either allows- or conducts- the misinformation. Educational failure is also a huge part of our current problem with misinformation, and it's the active, malicious deconstruction of our education system by political and corporate interests that is to blame for that, making voters less informed about history and science, less capable of applying rigorous critical thinking skills to information they encounter, etc, that is exacerbating our current problem of easily misled voters.

so i have no issue with this.

So then I would again ask, who do you think should determine what kind of journalism is 'needed'?

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Misinformation does not discredit democracy, it discredits the state apparatus that either allows- or conducts- the misinformation.

we don't agree on this for a variety of reasons, so i just reject the premise here and what follows from it.

So then I would again ask, who do you think should determine what kind of journalism is ‘needed’?

i'm pretty content to trust journalism as a collective institution to produce the sort of necessary journalism for a healthy civic society—it's been doing just that for a long time even in the absence of the readership to financially support it. (things like ProPublica would not exist if journalism was incapable of doing this from within)

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

so i just reject the premise here and what follows from it

...okay? I'm happy to discuss this within the parameters of a different political paradigm if you prefer, I just normally discuss things within the paradigms they currently operate under.

ProPublica would not exist if journalism was incapable of doing this from within

ProPublica exists precisely because of the public directly deciding which media organizations should receive funding; they're a donor-funded non-profit. They would not exist if the public did not agree- and vote with their wallets, as it were- to fund them. Journalism as a collective institution does not sustain itself.

journalism as a collective institution to produce the sort of necessary journalism for a healthy civic society

So just to be clear, are you advocating for news media to not be publicly-funded, or are you advocating that all news be publicly-funded?

Because if it's anything else, someone is making the call as to who receives funding and who doesn't, and journalism as a collective institution is not actually a decision-making body.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

ProPublica exists precisely because of the public directly deciding which media organizations should receive funding; they’re a donor-funded non-profit.

ProPublica exists in large part off of grant money, large philanthropic donors who believe in its journalism and very generous backing from the Sandler Foundation (which i believe gives it on the order of $10m a year). it does not really exist because of the kindness of individual small donors that you're using as shorthand for the "public", and if (as you suggested up thread) the public at-large was asked to fund ProPublica at the scale it currently operates, it would almost assuredly be non-viable.

So just to be clear, are you advocating for news media to not be publicly-funded, or are you advocating that all news be publicly-funded?

i think it's perfectly fine for all news to be publicly funded, yeah

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

i think it’s perfectly fine for all news to be publicly funded, yeah

So anyone could create a news organization, and publish anything they want, and receive public money for it? That seems like it would massively increase the amount of misinformation being thrown at voters, making them even less informed?

Personally, I don't like governments, so in my ideal world there would not be "public" funding in the way we define that now, it would be up to communities how to allocate their resources (and how to make those decisions), and which industries are important. But obviously I understand that situation is purely aspirational. In our current system, I prefer direct democracy over leaving decisions to a political class that is bought and paid for.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So anyone could create a news organization, and publish anything they want, and receive public money for it? That seems like it would massively increase the amount of misinformation being thrown at voters, making them even less informed?

this seems like an unfounded logical leap from the premise of government involvement, when the far more likely answer is this would become less likely due to the ability to directly regulate news media. you could probably make the public funding contingent on meeting certain editorial or transparency criteria to curb what you're describing, for example--this is, to a degree, the model of the Dutch public broadcasting system.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I don't think it's government involvement that causes that, I think it's the absence of some kind of mechanism to discriminate between news entities. The only question then, when avoiding that, is whether it's ultimately the government doing the choosing, or the public.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

it's not obvious there's public alignment with the kind of journalism that's needed and the kind of journalism that's wanted

The journalism that's "needed"... for what goals? Which becomes a question of "wanted by whom?".

You might want to shape society into a certain way, and you might have compelling reasons for it... but it's still an attempt at imposing your social model over others.

Democracy is intended to be a way to avoid that kind of singlehanded impositions, a way for "informed citizens" to vote on what benefits them most, even against what "a single wise man" (like a benevolent dictator) might want.

Consensus would be an even better form of government... but if you know people, then you'll know how hard it is for a large enough group to reach consensus, or even for two people, or even for one.

(Consensus used to be how Poland was ruled at one time, called "liberum veto", where any noble could veto any proposal. It did not go well. Nowadays we have a similar thing going on, where someone like Hungary can veto what everyone else has already agreed to, like the incorporation of Sweden into NATO)

Keep in mind though, that democracy relies on two key concepts:

  • Informed citizens
  • One vote per person

There is not even a real democracy in the world right now:

  • Citizens need to be informed... while they rarely are, instead being lead by propaganda and misinformation.
  • Representative democracy, where representation is chosen once in a blue moon, bundled into a few options, with no choice for a single person to disagree on a single point of a vote... is not democracy.
  • Having some people's votes be worth more than other's, even if it is for whatever "positive action" reasons (ethnicity, residence, having voted for a more voted option, etc.)... is not democracy.

There is a lot of work to be done, on all fronts, to get a society "better for itself"... but imposing a single point of view, no matter how well intended, is not the way.

For the moment, neither public nor privately funded journalism is the answer... the best answer is to have both, while working on ways to enable citizens to get better informed on the consequences of their votes and how they will impact them.

One such way, could be for people to have a trustable personal assistant capable of comparing their personal wishes and needs, to the various options available. This is where open source AIs on a smartphone might come in handy.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You might want to shape society into a certain way, and you might have compelling reasons for it… but it’s still an attempt at imposing your social model over others.

everybody wants to do this whether they admit to it or not (or whether they even think that's the case or not). "you want to impose your social model over others" is simply not a meaningful way of assessing the world--by necessity and definition, the world must operate under someone's social model, and obviously if i didn't believe my social model was the best for the world i wouldn't advocate for it to begin with. in my case, i don't even have the luxury of moving to live under the system i want--i did not consent to living in a capitalist social model because i think capitalism is an exploitative economic system that is destroying the world, but there is literally no existing country in the world (besides maybe Cuba, which is under immense economic pressure at all times to liberalize its economic system and be like Vietnam or China) i would consider to be outside of that model.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

by necessity and definition, the world must operate under someone's social model

I disagree. The world could operate under a model shaped by the continuous contributions of everyone, without anyone necessarily imposing or convincing others to adopt their particular model. A model that could evolve as people independently decide what's best for them in relation to everything.

As for capitalism... some countries have "being a welfare state" encoded in their constitution, above being capitalist. It may not be a full departure from capitalism (which doesn't seem like what people want anyway), but some countries have implemented it to a decent degree.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

The world could operate under a model shaped by the continuous contributions of everyone, without anyone necessarily imposing or convincing others to adopt their particular model.

what you've proposed here is not dissimilar to Stirnerite egoism and the issue with that is: Stirnerite egoism is exceedingly idealistic (to the point where almost nobody but Stirner has ever believed in it), so your proposal seems likewise troubled. arguably it's not even possible--i would contend for example that you're still just describing an ideology you want to impose on everyone else, and you have fallen into the trap of assuming it escapes the thinking you're critiquing.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Close, but no. From the Wikipedia article, it seems like Stirner identified correctly that all actions stem from "egoism", as in the internal motivations of anyone to act in some way... but failed to identify that this "egoism" can include acting following some laws, morals, or even altruistic actions, that an individual can perceive as beneficial for themselves.

There is no trap here, a society built on consensus, is whatever the individuals freely identify as positive for them. The biggest issue, is how to provide people with enough information so they can decide by themselves whether (for example) paying 5% more taxes in order to build some thousand miles of railroads, is something positive for their goals, or not.

The problem right now, is most people blindly defer making those decisions to others, on pure faith into whatever some corporation, party, or leader, influenced by whomever, decides to tell them... and once deferred (casting their votes), they're out of the decision making process for years at a time.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago

There is no trap here, a society built on consensus, is whatever the individuals freely identify as positive for them. The biggest issue, is how to provide people with enough information so they can decide by themselves whether (for example) paying 5% more taxes in order to build some thousand miles of railroads, is something positive for their goals, or not.

this is what i mean by you falling into the trap of assuming what you're proposing is distinct from anyone else imposing their ideology or social model on people. consensus necessarily begins and ends with people agreeing to a shared set of prescriptions on how society works, which is imposing both ideology and a social model through and through--it doesn't stop being that because it's agreed to or because you can hypothetically opt out of it. the Zapatistas operate under essentially this exact form of governance (and with the ability to opt out at any time) and if you described that as not an imposition of either social model or ideology that would be silly both to them and to any observer because the Zapatistas have very clear prescriptions of both.

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh, for sure. I also think a lot of things would be improved by that method, but that's veering quite off-topic.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago

a lot of things would be improved by that method

Agreed.

[–] Smoke@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago

In fact, if we look at BBC as an example, they’re publicly funded and maintain high credibility and a high degree of press freedom.

Indeed, the BBC cannot be seen to give in to government pressure.

[–] Nomad@infosec.pub 3 points 9 months ago

My counter is: have you been at the SMV? Have you seen how much government employees loathe to work? The most reliable way to kill the fifth estate is to make them government employees.

Kinda /s

Germany has a mixed landscape of government and private money in the media landscape and it kinda works so maybe it's not the worst idea.

Then again it's the people not the rules, swiss people all have guns and don't shoot up schools on the daily....