This House would bailout journalism.

A great deal of modern journalism has become a fairly disreputable commentary on whichever celebrity non-event happens to be in vogue at the moment. Quite rightly nobody would really miss this if it vanished tomorrow. However, journalism at its best remains one of the strongest defenses against tyranny, corruption and hypocrisy in public life that there is.

It is only through the determination, skill and knowledge of the best journalists that other sectors of society, not just the political class, are held to account in the full view of the public. For example the Guardian helped expose the phone hacking scandal in the British press.[i] If it were left to directors of big business and political insiders to regulate themselves then most corruption would be dealt with behind closed doors, if it were dealt with at all[ii].

[i] The Telegraph, ‘Leveson Inquiry: Guardian editor acknowledges ‘damaging impact of phone hacking scandal’, 16 November 2011.

[ii] John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney. “The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers.” The Nation. 6 April 2009.

The fall in the circulation and revenue of traditional media industries can be tied exactly to the fall in journalistic standards. Of course the emergence of the Internet and a fall in advertising revenue due to the recession is in part to blame for the difficulties now facing the press but they must also accept their share of the blame. Owners more interested in profits than news and journalists more interested in buddying up with politicians than holding them to account have caused a large part of the decline of the traditional print media.[i]

[i] Joseph Farrah. “Why Bail Out the Newspapers?” WorldNetDaily. 28 April 2009.

The State already invests large amounts of money into the media, both directly and indirectly. Firstly the state directly funds organisations like PBS and indirectly funds the likes of the BBC. In addition all governments are major media buyers in their own right, responsible for huge amounts of advertising and this applies to local government more than the national government. In addition there are softer subsidies such as government funding for journalism courses at universities.

All an additional bailout provides is a furtherance of an existing activity. The fact that these relationships and subsidies exist demonstrates that the state acknowledges the value of the media. The fact that the people tolerate it suggests that they do too[i].

[i] Rosa Brooks. “Bail Out Journalism” LA Times. 9 April 2009.

The suggestion that the people are ‘broadly’ happy with state media funding is a massive exaggeration. Every review of the BBC’s charter sees an argument over the license fee and the funding for public broadcasting is a constant point of contention in most countries where such arrangements take place.

Furthermore it is a fact universally acknowledged that where the government is required to prop up a media outlet it is because virtually nobody is watch or reading it.

If people are genuinely that keen to watch minority programming or read specialist journals they should pay for it in much the same way that people do with academic and technical journals.

A healthy print media guarantees a level of factual accuracy in a way that the internet simply cannot. The press also- when it works at its best- inculcates skills of research and quality writing that are sadly lacking from many major websites. If nothing else the media is a major industry, when the automobile or other industries face threats to their survival from technological change the government bails them out to give them time to adapt, such as the United States did with its $17.4 billion bailout of General Motors and Chrysler.[i] Here is an industry that is being hurt for a number of reason but delivers a proven good not available from another source – notably that of its primary rival. Government intervention should be the default position.

[i] BBC News, ‘Bush unveils $17.4bn car bail-out’, 19 December 2008

There is really nothing the print media industry produces that cannot be replicated more cheaply online. Websites live and die by their reputation in just the same way that newspapers do. Equally they provide a spectrum of quality and views and people select the perspective and intellectual level they enjoy most. The advantage of the Internet, however, is that potential readership figures are far greater and the possibilities are truly international.

The traditional media itself has acknowledged this state of affairs. All major news sources are now more likely to lead from their rolling online editions rather than their daily print editions. The fact that the advertising revenue is more thinly spread simply means news outlets need to work harder to attract a larger share of the pie. If they’re failing to do that, it’s their own fault, not the taxpayers[i].

[i] Declan McCullough. “Should you be taxed to subsidize the New York Tines?” CNET 27 September 2007

A great deal of modern journalism has become a fairly disreputable commentary on whichever celebrity non-event happens to be in vogue at the moment. Quite rightly nobody would really miss this if it vanished tomorrow. However, journalism at its best remains one of the strongest defenses against tyranny, corruption and hypocrisy in public life that there is.

It is only through the determination, skill and knowledge of the best journalists that other sectors of society, not just the political class, are held to account in the full view of the public. For example the Guardian helped expose the phone hacking scandal in the British press.[i] If it were left to directors of big business and political insiders to regulate themselves then most corruption would be dealt with behind closed doors, if it were dealt with at all[ii].

[i] The Telegraph, ‘Leveson Inquiry: Guardian editor acknowledges ‘damaging impact of phone hacking scandal’, 16 November 2011.

[ii] John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney. “The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers.” The Nation. 6 April 2009.

The fall in the circulation and revenue of traditional media industries can be tied exactly to the fall in journalistic standards. Of course the emergence of the Internet and a fall in advertising revenue due to the recession is in part to blame for the difficulties now facing the press but they must also accept their share of the blame. Owners more interested in profits than news and journalists more interested in buddying up with politicians than holding them to account have caused a large part of the decline of the traditional print media.[i]

[i] Joseph Farrah. “Why Bail Out the Newspapers?” WorldNetDaily. 28 April 2009.

The State already invests large amounts of money into the media, both directly and indirectly. Firstly the state directly funds organisations like PBS and indirectly funds the likes of the BBC. In addition all governments are major media buyers in their own right, responsible for huge amounts of advertising and this applies to local government more than the national government. In addition there are softer subsidies such as government funding for journalism courses at universities.

All an additional bailout provides is a furtherance of an existing activity. The fact that these relationships and subsidies exist demonstrates that the state acknowledges the value of the media. The fact that the people tolerate it suggests that they do too[i].

[i] Rosa Brooks. “Bail Out Journalism” LA Times. 9 April 2009.

The suggestion that the people are ‘broadly’ happy with state media funding is a massive exaggeration. Every review of the BBC’s charter sees an argument over the license fee and the funding for public broadcasting is a constant point of contention in most countries where such arrangements take place.

Furthermore it is a fact universally acknowledged that where the government is required to prop up a media outlet it is because virtually nobody is watch or reading it.

If people are genuinely that keen to watch minority programming or read specialist journals they should pay for it in much the same way that people do with academic and technical journals.

A healthy print media guarantees a level of factual accuracy in a way that the internet simply cannot. The press also- when it works at its best- inculcates skills of research and quality writing that are sadly lacking from many major websites. If nothing else the media is a major industry, when the automobile or other industries face threats to their survival from technological change the government bails them out to give them time to adapt, such as the United States did with its $17.4 billion bailout of General Motors and Chrysler.[i] Here is an industry that is being hurt for a number of reason but delivers a proven good not available from another source – notably that of its primary rival. Government intervention should be the default position.

[i] BBC News, ‘Bush unveils $17.4bn car bail-out’, 19 December 2008

There is really nothing the print media industry produces that cannot be replicated more cheaply online. Websites live and die by their reputation in just the same way that newspapers do. Equally they provide a spectrum of quality and views and people select the perspective and intellectual level they enjoy most. The advantage of the Internet, however, is that potential readership figures are far greater and the possibilities are truly international.

The traditional media itself has acknowledged this state of affairs. All major news sources are now more likely to lead from their rolling online editions rather than their daily print editions. The fact that the advertising revenue is more thinly spread simply means news outlets need to work harder to attract a larger share of the pie. If they’re failing to do that, it’s their own fault, not the taxpayers[i].

[i] Declan McCullough. “Should you be taxed to subsidize the New York Tines?” CNET 27 September 2007

It is simply a bad idea to have the media receive its funding from the very people it’s meant to be holding to account. Even if it did not lead to actual bias, it would certainly lead to the suspicion of it.

It is important that readers and viewers can have some degree of confidence that there is not even the suspicion of collusion. It is in the nature of things that the government would be less interested in getting stories put in than in getting inconvenient ones pulled. As a result consumers of the media would have no way of knowing whether collusion had taken place.

Ignoring the fact, as already mentioned, that the government already subsidizes the media, it is routine for media outlets to report bad news on advertisers.  Admittedly in the case of minor stories it might have some impact but in the case of a major story the associated increase in circulation and the effect that can have on rates charged to other advertisers in future more than compensates.

Additionally, as all liberal democratic states contain multiple media outlets, the likelihood of all of them agreeing to supress a story- in what is a fantastically competitive market- is essentially nil. Indeed, letting the editor of a newspaper know that all of his rivals had decided not to run a story would seem to be a sure fire way of guaranteeing that he would put it on the front page. Competition between advertisers and outlets solves this problem neatly.

Throwing money at an industry that is failing due to technological change is simply foolish. This isn’t a minor technological shift, it’s the emergence of an entirely new delivery system. This isn’t a case of giving financial support to Detroit while they come up with more fuel efficient cars.  The modification to the status quo that proposition suggest would be more like supporting chimney sweeps following the introduction of cheap gas powered heating .

There is a clear difference between a changing industry and a dying one and newspapers fall firmly into the latter category.

The fact that they failed to adapt in time simply speaks to the arrogance of the industry and their ill-thought out belief that people would always want their daily paper.

There is clearly some truth in the idea that people will always want a physical paper and no doubt many people will. In much the same way the death of the book has been predicted with virtually every improvement in communications for the last two centuries speaks, quite literally, volumes.

However there are undeniably changes brought about by the Internet but that is only one factor. Through in the deepest recession in a century – an event which was bound to freeze up advertising spending as well as massive increases in production costs in recent years and newspapers are simply facing the kind of blow that no industry could realistically be expected to survive easily.

It is all too easy to think of the media as a thing in its own right rather than considering it to be another industry. But in the end that’s what it is. In 2008 more than 15,500 journalists lost their jobs in the US, a seventy percent increase on the previous year. In any other industry an increase of that order would be an immediate signal for government intervention.[i]

[i] Sara Catania. “Hey President Obama, Spare Any Change?” Huffington Post. 1 January 2009

Just like any other industry, in fact, there are good times and bad times. The fantastically rich individuals who own the bulk of newspapers were more than happy to milk their cash cows during the good times, well now it’s payback time. The Murdochs, the Packers and others have no shortage of cash. If a bailout is genuinely needed it should come from them and not from the taxpayer.

There is something distinctly unsightly about an industry that is typified by the presence of billionaires paying relatively low wages, the average wage for a journalist in the UK £24,500[i] is below the national median wage of £25,879,[ii] to have them then turn around to the government and ask for cash.

[i] Reed, Tim, ‘Newspaper journalist Salary and conditions’, prospects

[ii] Snowdon, Graham, ‘The UK’s best-paid jobs’, The Guardian, 18 December 2010

The same could be said of a number of industries, most noticeably banking. However, governments still intervened when there was a crisis there. Indeed there would be a lot to be said for getting the moguls out of newspapers altogether, their involvement has had mostly a negative impact and it seems unlikely that they are likely to discover a sudden sympathy for their employees when there are Asian sports channels to be bought and milked some more.

However, for governments that refused to cap boardroom pay following the taxpayer bailout of the banking sector to suddenly decide that the rich should pay their share in this regard would seem hugely inconsistent.

As with banking the government needs to acknowledge that an active and able media sector is simply too important to fail.