I hope they found the talk by John Nichols and Robert McChesney as rousing as I did. The two are co-founders of Free Press, a Northampton- and Washington D.C.- based pro-democracy organization, and authors of the new book "The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again."
Their premise is that journalism that helps citizens govern themselves is a "public good" that should be subsidized with our tax dollars -- just like it traditionally had been when the Founding Fathers were around and is now in many other countries considered relative bastions of democracy. (Here, advertisers had underwritten the news for the last 150 years or so, but, these days, they're taking their message directly to their target audience -- on Facebook, for instance.)
A typical reaction to McChesney's and Nichols' argument is that government subsidies will inevitably lead to "Pol Pot, death camps and gulags." But, in fact, before the emergence of advertiser-subsidized news, the Post Office underwrote the news by distributing it for free. If the federal government similarly funded journalism now the way it did in the 1840's, it would amount to $30 billion a year.
In McChesney's and Nichols' view, all the other ideas floated for underwriting serious reporting -- paywalls, NPR-style fundraising etc. -- will only get us to the "10 yard line -- and it's the wrong 10 yard line."
Some of their ideas:
-- Journalism doesn't have to be "for profit."
-- There could be an Americorps for reporters graduating from college much as there is one for teachers
-- Dramatically expand funding for public local media, which are already reporting the news to the extent they can on shoestring budgets.
--Increase funding for student media.
Brian pointed out this barred owl when we were running on the Norwottuck Rail Trail recently.
A lot has happened since I posted to AboutAmherst last. For one, Republican Scott Brown was elected to succeed Ted Kennedy as our U.S. senator. I'm promoting Matt Damon on my Facebook page to run against Brown in 2012 when Kennedy's term would have ended. I'm hearing that people would like Matt to campaign door-to-door and pledge to work to make robo-calls illegal.
In other news, I am training to become a fitness instructor -- Well, it doesn't look like I'm going to get a reporter's job, until McChesney and Nichols convince the country that news is a public good worth spending our tax dollars on, does it? And my siblings have been sending me some great photos of my nieces. Here's Olivia, of Fort Lauderdale.
And Evangeline, the queen of make-believe.
A lot has happened since I posted to AboutAmherst last. For one, Republican Scott Brown was elected to succeed Ted Kennedy as our U.S. senator. I'm promoting Matt Damon on my Facebook page to run against Brown in 2012 when Kennedy's term would have ended. I'm hearing that people would like Matt to campaign door-to-door and pledge to work to make robo-calls illegal.
And Evangeline, the queen of make-believe.


















