I'm aware that some people find the news as it exists largely useless. I'm going to suggest that this is in fact a symptom of the larger problem I'm referencing.
And that news can be useful, even vital at times. And performs a critical role in a democratic polity. One which is increasingly not being performed, most especially at the local and regional level.
And that the proposals I'm making in TFA might be worth discussion in that light.
The closest you've come to a solution is to pay for it with taxes. Is there an example of this working in the wild? Why do you think this is the best solution? Why is the status quo a problem that needs your solution in the first place?
Governments exist, amongst other roles, to provide for the common weal, that is, sources of general improvement, which markets and other mechanisms cannot provide. Generally, this is achieved through spending and taxation[1], legislation and regulation, and in some cases specific executive roles. Most functions of government, passage of laws, operation of courts, defence, social welfare, backstop insurance,[2] and public goods and services such as schools, roads, police, fire, ports, and often services including hospitals, sewerage, water, electricity, postal services, and occasionally communications and media.
There are of course many instances of media organisations directly funded through governments, most especially in broadcasting: the BBC, ABC (Australia), CBC, Deutsche Welle, Deutschlandfunk, and more, partial list here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41262025>.
Print media has more often been at least nominally privately-held, but often with major indirect public support. In the US that takes the form of discounted postal rates, legal notices, tax breaks, and direct advertising expenditures by governments. See:
Many of those subsidies have decreased, been eliminated, or no longer apply (e.g., postal discounts given Internet-based distribution) in today's world, and along with other business challenges have made commercial newspaper (or online news-media) operation all the more challenging.
A key challenge is that information is a public good, in the economic sense:
- It is (mostly) nonrivalrous and nonexcludable. That is, one person's consumption doesn't preclude others doing so (unlike, say, food or land), and it's difficult (though not impossible) to restrict access.
- Marginal costs of production, that is, the additional cost for an additional unit produced or consumed, is near nil. This has implications on how market prices fall, which is (absent other manipulation) also near nil.
- News and information have high positive externalities. That is, there are benefits to consumption which the producer cannot readily capture through market mechanisms.
A lot of this boils down to "there's no easy way to erect tollbooths on the consumption or distribution of information, and high costs in the form of deadweight losses (people excluded from access) from doing so."
But there are at least two remaining tollbooths:
- The ISP, with whom the reader has an existing financial relationship.
- Tax authorities: local (city/county), state, and national.
Each of these can charge audiences, and pay publishers, for media accessed online. My proposal is that payments be relatively nominal (on the order of $100 to $400/year for a household), and be made with minimal prejudice to qualifying publishers and authors. (Some independent arbitrator of which publishers qualify, and a mechanism, perhaps itself market based, for payment rates based on media category would probably be part of such a scheme.) Indirect supports analogous to postal-rate subsidies, legal notices, and direct government advertising might also apply.
A tax / universal content fee approach directly addresses the many issues of applying markets to information goods (addressed in this comment and links).
All successful media models at scale divorce reveneus from consumption. Advertising most particularly.
TFA and my many comments (as well as those of numerous others in this thread) address what the failures of the status quo are. Most saliently: news organisations, print, broadcast, and online are simply failing to survive presently, and lack of effective news and informational sources is a key driver of social and political dysfunction. Weak media institutions are highly susceptible to malign influences.
Interesting use of the word weal, which apparently here is used in the sense of "well-being" rather than the other meaning of "a nasty purple wound":
> Governments exist, amongst other roles, to provide for the common weal,
Yes, but governments also exist - looking at governments in general, around the world - to further the interests of officials and their families, and provide them with money, status, disproportionate rights, and ideologically agreeable laws. And then there are organisations, which may be related to governments or effectively similar to governments or agents of governments, with a mission or interest in distorting news so that the money, status, etc., gets delivered.
So in theory, under good governance, that wouldn't happen. Additionally, the government would be all-knowing with a good grip on salience, so it wouldn't do anything biased, even by accident. And then we might as well have news distributed by a central ministry of information, which would reliably arbitrate the truth in a good way.
Since actual governments are at best kinda corrupt and somewhat stupid, it would be better for taxpayers to fund a diversity of editorially independent news media sources, right?
But that's kind of passing the buck to the grass roots. In theory, the natural power of the grass roots can cause information to be critiqued and filtered by by many independent and informed individuals so that a consensus on the facts of what is actually going on bubbles to the top. In reality, it's social media, and its accuracy depends on the power of good moderation and a good culture, which, like good governance, is brought into being and sustained by voodoo.
I think the answer is: if you've found a good, trustworthy source of information, whether a public broadcaster, a commercial media entity, or a non-commercial forum, treasure it while it lasts, and by all means bring more of these into being. Except I don't think anybody knows what those means are and it seems to happen more or less by accident. Something about open society.
Since actual governments are at best kinda corrupt and somewhat stupid, it would be better for taxpayers to fund a diversity of editorially independent news media sources, right?
But of course. And there's nothing in public funding of media that says that multiple media sources cannot be funded.
As for the rest of your ... comment: all human institutions tend toward corruption. Government, Church, Business, Family, Academy. We recognise this, are aware of it, fight it, accept what we must, and try to pit the various factions against one another in a a balance of power. Multiple sources, as you say.
The issue with present media isn't the lack of many sources, it's the financial investments required for them to be both effective and sustaining. Which as my earlier comment (and many others on that topic) makes clear simply will not and cannot happen in a pure-play market approach. And for the most part never has.
> weal: "well-being," Old English wela "wealth," in late Old English also "welfare, well-being," from West Germanic *welon-, from PIE root *wel- (2) "to wish, will"
I think there are three parts to your argument: 1) status quo is bad 2) you can design and centrally direct a better alternative and 3) it should be funded through taxation.
Whether we need 3 depends on 1 and 2. Hell, if 1 is bad enough and 2 is good enough, it could justify anything, including conscription to a literal media war. But even assuming I grant you 1 is true, nothing in TFA or your comments convinces me that 2 is true.
Most examples of state and media unification I can think of are not free, not useful except as explicit propaganda arms.
Several people have responded in ways that suggest I'm talking about publicly funding a single news source. That's not at all what I'm suggesting.
Rather, it's creating a public fund for numerous news and informational sources. How many, what qualifications they should have, and how they are individually compensated is a further element of this discussion, but all of that's secondary to the point that what I'm calling for is not a single unitary Ministry of News, but for a many entities, preferably with multiple funding streams whether governmental (at local / regional / state / federal levels), ISP / connectivity provider fees, or other indirect funding sources (subscriptions, memberships, sponsorships, foundations, philanthropy, advertising, legal notices, distribution and/or production subsidies).
> many entities, preferably with multiple funding streams whether governmental (at local / regional / state / federal levels), ISP / connectivity provider fees, or other indirect funding sources (subscriptions, memberships, sponsorships, foundations, philanthropy, advertising, legal notices, distribution and/or production subsidies).
This is broad enough to include every funding source, and you're back to describing the status quo. All of these funding sources are available currently, and they're evidently not enough. The thesis just morphs from "why won't people pay for news?" to "why won't people politically organize to create quasi-public well funded media apparatuses?"
The difference is a funding floor in the form of a diversified, universally-applied funding basis, in the form of taxes (at multiple governmental levels) and/or an ISP-implemented media fee. Media and journalism generally presently lack this, and are suffering badly for it.
The reframing question is fair, but asking why people won't pay directly for subscriptions under the present model remains a useful excercise, and is what I've attempted here.
In TFA you say it should be funded "on a progressive basis", how do you suggest this be implemented? Most funding sources you suggest cannot discriminate based on user income; ISP fees, subscriptions, advertising... none of these can be applied progressively. You're really back down to more income taxation.
To a first approximation, varying fee by average neigbbourhood income might accomplish much of this. An assessment baked into income taxes (state or federal) could of course accomplish this directly.
Offering different pricing tiers is another option, with a "basic" package that includes most sources, and one or more premium tiers which includes either greater availablity, or more immediate / current access to, entertainment and sport content, for example.
Basic informational content, including news and cultural lore (classic books, movies, music, etc.) would be in the basic tier.
> news and cultural lore (classic books, movies, music, etc.)
Is the aim to recreate a state directed facsimile of the entire media ecosystem? All of this seems totally redundant to the market offerings, just now with bureaucratic overhead and the removal of personal choice, but it's tax funded so it's somehow better?
It'd be simpler just to collect progressive taxes and give cash to the poor, who can pay for news and media (or food) according to their own preferences.
And that news can be useful, even vital at times. And performs a critical role in a democratic polity. One which is increasingly not being performed, most especially at the local and regional level.
And that the proposals I'm making in TFA might be worth discussion in that light.
Thanks.