It looks like we can add government assistance to the pile of disintegrating business models facing the media.
A new study of historic subsidies and emerging trends tracks various tax breaks, reductions in postal subsidies first enacted in 1792, and upcoming cutbacks in public notices that government regulations have traditionally forced into American newspapers.
In addition to a detailed review of past practices, the report by Geoffrey Cowan and David Westphal of the University of Southern California serves up some even-handed perspective on the hot-button issue of government funding for news.
There are plenty of reasons to challenge government funding of news — as well as a few reasons to consider it — but none of the debate is served by ignorance of the substantial thread of subsidy running through American journalism history.
Cowan and Westphal pose two central questions about the future of such funding, the second “potentially trickier,” as they put it, than the first:
- “Is a new form of government intervention prudent, and necessary to ensure that Americans have access to the kind of information they need in a democracy?”
- “If there is such a need, is government capable, amid such overwhelming change in the news business, of making choices that will make things better?”
With that second concern in mind, they urge consideration of two ideas:
- “Increase government funding of public broadcasting” (a suggestion also advanced by the report issued last Fall by Len Downie and Michael Schudson).
- “Relax restrictions on domestic consumption of news reports by the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty and other government-funded international broadcasters.”
One of the study’s authors, Cowan, dean emeritus of the USC Annenberg School, has significant background in a couple of the government entities discussed. He served as director of the Voice of America in the Clinton administration and is a former board member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Westphal, executive in residence at Annenberg, is a former Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers.
The authors propose a three-point framework for government action related to news industry finances:
- “First and foremost, do no harm. A cycle of powerful innovation is under way. To the extent possible, government should avoid retarding the emergence of new models of news-gathering.”
- “Second, the government should help promote innovation, as it did when the Department of Defense funded the research that created the Internet…”
- “Third, for commercial media, government-supported mechanisms that are content neutral — such as copyright protections, postal subsidies and taxes — are preferable to those that call upon the government to fund specific news outlets, publications or programs.”
