By JEFFREY M. MCCALL | The Hill
It seems everybody wants to “save” the journalism industry these days, except for the people who matter most — news consumers.
Citizens have been turning away from establishment news sources for some time. Audiences no longer trust news outlets to be fair, and this decline in media credibility has caused readers and viewers to disengage from the news. That necessarily leads to lost revenue for news organizations, layoffs of journalists and, ultimately, the closing of news outlets. There is no doubt: the journalism industry is suffering.
Legislators across the country are hopping on their white horses to ride to the rescue, with several states approving various measures to prop up the news industry with state resources. This all sounds quite noble; after all, journalism helps provide the flow of information that is essential in a functioning democracy. But there is a big problem when governments use taxpayer money to provide content to the citizenry. Any information disseminated with government money is not really “news” — it is spin at best, and propaganda at worst.
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