Why not provide the prosecution with some evidence, along the lines of a very good idea:
By endowing our most valued sources of news we would free them from
the strictures of an obsolete business model and offer them a permanent
place in society, like that of America’s colleges and universities.
Endowments would transform newspapers into unshakable fixtures of
American life, with greater stability and enhanced independence that
would allow them to serve the public good more effectively.
As
educational and literary organizations devoted to the “promotion of
social welfare,” endowed newspapers would benefit from Section
501(c)(3) of the I.R.S. code, which provides exemption from taxes on
income and allows tax deductions for people who make contributions to
eligible organizations.
institution is the prohibition in the same law against trying to
“influence legislation” or “participate in any campaign activity for or
against political candidates.” While endowed newspapers would need to
refrain from endorsing candidates for public office, they would still
be free to participate forcefully in the debate over issues of public
importance. The loss of endorsements seems minor in the context of the
opinion-heavy Web.
Cloaked in some seriously dishonest bullshit:
the Internet has the potential to be, in the words of the chief
executive of Google, Eric Schmidt, “a cesspool” of false information.
For example, I turned to this story on the Internet, on the New York Times’ web site. Perhaps it is part of the cesspool of false information. Just like those fucking Yahoo.com weather reports, Epicurious recipes, and Fandom Wank.
FOR THE LOVE OF STEVE IT’S A BIG INTERNET. Some of it’s crap. Some of it’s SUPPOSED to be crap. Some of it’s not. Just like … newspapers, television, radio, ’twas ever thus.
God.
The advertising revenues that newspaper Web sites generate are not
enough to sustain robust news coverage. Though The New York Times Web
site attracted 20 million unique users in October, Web-driven revenues
support only an estimated 20 percent of the paper’s current staff.
As
newspapers go digital, their business model erodes. A 2008 research
report from Sanford C. Bernstein & Company explained, “The notion
that the enormous cost of real news-gathering might be supported by the
ad load of display advertising down the side of the page, or by the
revenue share from having a Google search box in the corner of the
page, or even by a 15-second teaser from Geico prior to a news clip, is
idiotic on its face.”
Well, no. Absolutely not. I mean, we need a couple of Yalies to tell us AdSense doesn’t pay for shit? I could have told them that three years ago and I’m a girl who went to state school. You know what would have enhanced these two grafs immensely?Some numbers on exactly how much time and personnel investment newspapers have made in trying to sell web advertising. Is it equal to that selling print? If not, why give up in advance and say it’s not gonna work, unless it’s just to provide an excuse to hate on the Internet some more?
And you can endow an institution up its asshole but if you keep in place the kinds of shitty, selfish management tactics that allowed newspapers to overburden themselves with debt and ignore any and all approaching trends plus deal with “declining profits” (note this does not mean there weren’t profits nor adequate revenue) by slashing and burning and flailing around like a drunk bear on fire, not much will really change.
I absolutely applaud the thinking in the direction of non-profit institutions and endowed ones. I just don’t think you need to support that thinking with lazy blame on pixels and readers when it was management who screwed this up.
A.