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The core problem is the "Eat Your Broccoli" Problem. In-depth and globe-spanning reporting is essential for a running democracy, but everyone would rather spen

The core problem is the "Eat Your Broccoli" Problem. In-depth and globe-spanning reporting is essential for a running democracy, but everyone would rather spend their money on American Idol than American Morning and would rather read about celebrity domestic scandals than domestic policy. The cross-subsidy system worked well in the 20th century to avert this, but that's out the window. We need to either create a new cross-subsidy system or we need to find a way to charge people for news directly. And let's not forget Craigslist if we're casting blame on why the Internet killed newspapers. The classifieds section got decimated by it. "Here, they confuse journalism with newspapers, and an informed public with newspaper jobs. In fact, Americans have never been better informed or more engaged." This is not new or unique to newspapers. It's a fallacy common to pretty much every sinking industry. "but the FTC is an 'independent' agency run by people appointed by the Obama Administration, which has been antagonistic to an Internet it cannot control" When has the Obama Administration been antagonistic towards the Internet? Aside from ISP-promoted wackaloon conspiracy theories about how Net Neutrality is actually censorship, where is the argument (much less evidence) for this? I mean, I realize this is The Heritage Foundation, but come on. Way to trash a great article with a nonsensical partisan jab.

coreymull 16y ago
Part of the problem is that "American Morning" is not that much better than "American Idol". In fact, I think I'd rather watch the latter; at least it's somewhat entertaining.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
" The cross-subsidy system worked well in the 20th century to avert this..." I dispute this notion. My reading of 20th century tele-journalism is that if anything it was a step backward even from the standards of the 19th century. Granted, it gave many people the perception of being informed about the world, but in practice I believe it fell far short of the mark. More to the point, I don't think today's standards of journalism are particularly lower than those 50 years ago, for example. However, the difference in cultural perspective and in the available alternate channels of data make the low quality of modern journalism much more obvious.
- ZachPruckowski 16y ago
  >My reading of 20th century tele-journalism Quality may have gone down during the 1980s and later, but that's unrelated to the fact that we had advertising and classifieds and entertainment shows to offset the cost of journalism.
gyardley 16y ago
Well, the same author has a recent column in National Review Online about this: http://article.nationalreview.com/434022/obama-vs-the-ipad/mike-gonzalez http://article.nationalreview.com/434022/obama-vs-the-ipad/m... The article includes two quotes from President Obama. The first from a commencement address: You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter. And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations . . . information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. The second is from an interview with CBS News: There’s one last point I gotta make, Bob, and that is that I do think part of what’s different today is the 24-hour news cycle and cable TV and blogs and all this. They focus on the most extreme elements in both sides. They can’t get enough of conflict. It’s catnip to the media right now. And so the easiest way to get 15 minutes of fame is to be rude to somebody. In that environment, I think it makes it more difficult to solve the problems the American people sent us here to solve. Constructing an 'antagonistic to the Internet' argument on the basis of those two quotes seems somewhat, well, challenging - but those seem to be the primary sources.
- ams6110 16y ago
  I'm no fan of the Obama administration but if you watch any of the "analysis" shows on cable news channels it is clear that "stirring the hornet's nest" is a big part of how they operate. And I don't think it's a bad message to say "just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true" but I would say the same goes for any other media these days, including White House press releases.
  - gyardley 16y ago
    Right, which is why I said constructing an argument based on such sources would be challenging. A commenter asked what the writer's justification was for calling the Obama administration antagonistic to the internet, and I found it for him. Doesn't mean that the writer's justification has merit.
bokonist 16y ago
In-depth and globe-spanning reporting is essential for a running democracy, but everyone would rather spend their money on American Idol than American Morning and would rather read about celebrity domestic scandals than domestic policy Instead of fighting the uphill battle of making ordinary people care about global affairs, why not just restrict the franchise to those who can bother themselves to be an informed citizen? Give everyone a test in order to vote.
- MichaelSalib 16y ago
  What exactly would we be testing? There's a fair bit of research showing that exposure to information doesn't really cause people to discard incorrect beliefs they already hold. It seems like any testing regime would lead to a state where people with time and money could afford to take test prep so they'd know what answers to write on the test without actually having to change make their voting consistent with knowledge. Seems pointless. But I never did get people who were eager to disenfranchise lots of their fellow citizens at the drop of a hat.
  - bokonist 16y ago
    It seems like any testing regime would lead to a state where people with time and money could afford to take test prep so they'd know what answers to write on the test without actually having to change make their voting consistent with knowledge. That would actually be ideal. That way you'd get smart, driven people voting who in reality thought for themselves. My real worry is that the tests would end up being designed to filter out people of the wrong ideology, thus giving power to the test-creators. The way to avoid this is to test for basic factual questions - who is the prime minister of Israel, who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, etc. This information is freely available. If you can't be bothered Seems pointless. But I never did get people who were eager to disenfranchise lots of their fellow citizens at the drop of a hat. I never get people who assume universal suffrage is a great thing. People who vote have great power over your life. You wouldn't want to give a pilot who wasn't qualified control of a plane. Why give voters who aren't qualified power to steer the ship of state? Have you ever listened to talk radio before? Does it scare you that those people have so much power over your life? Or to put it more succinctly, would you rather be ruled by the commenters at Hacker News, or the commenters at Digg?

coreymull 16y ago

Part of the problem is that "American Morning" is not that much better than "American Idol". In fact, I think I'd rather watch the latter; at least it's somewhat entertaining.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

" The cross-subsidy system worked well in the 20th century to avert this..." I dispute this notion. My reading of 20th century tele-journalism is that if anything it was a step backward even from the standards of the 19th century. Granted, it gave many people the perception of being informed about the world, but in practice I believe it fell far short of the mark. More to the point, I don't think today's standards of journalism are particularly lower than those 50 years ago, for example. However, the difference in cultural perspective and in the available alternate channels of data make the low quality of modern journalism much more obvious.

ZachPruckowski 16y ago
>My reading of 20th century tele-journalism Quality may have gone down during the 1980s and later, but that's unrelated to the fact that we had advertising and classifieds and entertainment shows to offset the cost of journalism.

gyardley 16y ago

Well, the same author has a recent column in National Review Online about this: http://article.nationalreview.com/434022/obama-vs-the-ipad/mike-gonzalez http://article.nationalreview.com/434022/obama-vs-the-ipad/m... The article includes two quotes from President Obama. The first from a commencement address: You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter. And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations . . . information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. The second is from an interview with CBS News: There’s one last point I gotta make, Bob, and that is that I do think part of what’s different today is the 24-hour news cycle and cable TV and blogs and all this. They focus on the most extreme elements in both sides. They can’t get enough of conflict. It’s catnip to the media right now. And so the easiest way to get 15 minutes of fame is to be rude to somebody. In that environment, I think it makes it more difficult to solve the problems the American people sent us here to solve. Constructing an 'antagonistic to the Internet' argument on the basis of those two quotes seems somewhat, well, challenging - but those seem to be the primary sources.

ams6110 16y ago
I'm no fan of the Obama administration but if you watch any of the "analysis" shows on cable news channels it is clear that "stirring the hornet's nest" is a big part of how they operate. And I don't think it's a bad message to say "just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true" but I would say the same goes for any other media these days, including White House press releases.
- gyardley 16y ago
  Right, which is why I said constructing an argument based on such sources would be challenging. A commenter asked what the writer's justification was for calling the Obama administration antagonistic to the internet, and I found it for him. Doesn't mean that the writer's justification has merit.

bokonist 16y ago

In-depth and globe-spanning reporting is essential for a running democracy, but everyone would rather spend their money on American Idol than American Morning and would rather read about celebrity domestic scandals than domestic policy Instead of fighting the uphill battle of making ordinary people care about global affairs, why not just restrict the franchise to those who can bother themselves to be an informed citizen? Give everyone a test in order to vote.

MichaelSalib 16y ago
What exactly would we be testing? There's a fair bit of research showing that exposure to information doesn't really cause people to discard incorrect beliefs they already hold. It seems like any testing regime would lead to a state where people with time and money could afford to take test prep so they'd know what answers to write on the test without actually having to change make their voting consistent with knowledge. Seems pointless. But I never did get people who were eager to disenfranchise lots of their fellow citizens at the drop of a hat.
- bokonist 16y ago
  It seems like any testing regime would lead to a state where people with time and money could afford to take test prep so they'd know what answers to write on the test without actually having to change make their voting consistent with knowledge. That would actually be ideal. That way you'd get smart, driven people voting who in reality thought for themselves. My real worry is that the tests would end up being designed to filter out people of the wrong ideology, thus giving power to the test-creators. The way to avoid this is to test for basic factual questions - who is the prime minister of Israel, who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, etc. This information is freely available. If you can't be bothered Seems pointless. But I never did get people who were eager to disenfranchise lots of their fellow citizens at the drop of a hat. I never get people who assume universal suffrage is a great thing. People who vote have great power over your life. You wouldn't want to give a pilot who wasn't qualified control of a plane. Why give voters who aren't qualified power to steer the ship of state? Have you ever listened to talk radio before? Does it scare you that those people have so much power over your life? Or to put it more succinctly, would you rather be ruled by the commenters at Hacker News, or the commenters at Digg?