Government to decide its role in U.S. media

According to Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman-CA, the government needs to step in and reshape the way America gets its news.

Now that the elections are over, many news outlets are struggling to make a profit and the plethora of websites that provide news has put a dent in the traditional main stream media, many of which are now begging for a government bailout.

Waxman claims that quality journalism is an essential process for U.S. democracy and argued that it was the duty of government to step in and prop up failing newspapers. However, many disagree with Waxman’s assessment of lagging newspapers, namely Fox News and talk radio in general. If one believes in the free-market capitalism model and a product no longer wanted by the public at large - the product fails.

Nobody will argue the media leans left in overwhelming numbers and since the country is a center right crowd, perhaps news organizations should tweak their product to reflect a true American market.

“Eventually government is going to have to be responsible to help and resolve these issues,” Waxman told a U.S. Federal Trade Commission conference on the future of journalism.

Free Press, a public interest organization, said “the search for solutions to the crisis in journalism should be premised on the idea that news-gathering is a public service, not a commodity.” Keep reading

This entry was posted on 3. December 2009 at 02:23 and is filed under censorship, Blogroll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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