On Tue, 17 Mar 2009, Jordan Hayes wrote:
> Local investigative journalism is absolutely essential to fighting
> official corruption; that's as true in Tulsa as it is in Seattle.
Yeah, I thought about that after I posted. That is damned essential. And takes money and professionalism.
Just for argument's sake: because this is so essential, is it possible to imagine this running on a tax-funded basis?
Could we perhaps get around the control issue by electing an ombudsman? As one now elects in some cities a Public Advocate -- who runs, in some ways, a low-grade (but upgradable?) investigative journalism outlet that starts with a city-wide complaint system.
Does seem like total nonsense?
And continuing along that track, is it possible to imagine a similar tax-funded model for national and international news? A BBC model, as it were? With some kind of safeguard from government interference? (A key point, to be sure, which I don't have a sure answer to.)
I'm sure other people must have speculated along these lines, but for some reason I only keep hearing about the foundation/donation model. Which could certainly be a supplement. But I find it hard to imagine a modern society placing an indispensable function entirely in the hands of charity.
Now that I'm thinking about it, John Dewey proposed something like this in the 1920s in _The Public and Its Problems_. IIRC, he said the only way to get journalism that wasn't trivial and biased was to cut out competitive profit pressures. He also despaired that without such substantial journalism decent public discourse was impossible.
And all of us who find professional journalism indispensable know all too well how trivial, stupid and timid so much of it is. Could it be possible that in saving it, we could improve it? And that paradoxically, some of the process of paring it down to essentials could be part of that improvement?
Just wondering out loud.
On this view, the debate shouldn't be present-day papers vs. the internet, on which I think we're agreed. It would rather be
1) What is the essential core of professional journalism without which decent public discourse is impossible?
2) How could it be sufficiently funded? and
3) What could amateur and semi-pro networks do well enough that professional journalism would no longer need to?
I realize suddenly I am personally kind of fuzzy on the boundaries and contents of all three sets. But I'd be interested to hear anybody's suggestions for enumerating and delineating them.
Michael