Mathew Ingram: This week, we've been talking with a number of people about what could be done to help the media industry out of the financial crisis it's in -- a crisis that was already bad even before the coronavirus came along. Every day, it seems, news outlets both large and small announce waves of furloughs, salary cuts, and layoffs for significant numbers of their employees. Some newspapers in smaller communities have shut down completely. So what should we be doing about this? Should there be some kind of government bailout? Should digital platforms like Google and Facebook be forced to subsidize a public fund for media? And if so, how would the recipients be chosen and by whom?
The experts we've spoken to include Victor Pickard from the University of Pennsylvania, author of the recent book "Democracy Without Journalism"; Craig Aaron, co-CEO of Free Press; Travis Waldron from HuffPost; David Chavern, director of the News Media Alliance; John Stanton from the Save Journalism Project; Sarah Alvarez from Outlier Media; Anne Nelson from Columbia University; Jonathan O'Connell of the Washington Post; Steven Waldman, co-founder of Report For America; Chris Horne from The Devil Strip in Akron, Ohio; Melissa Davis from Colorado Media Project; Yosef Getachew from Common Cause; John Schleuss, president of The NewsGuild-CWA, and Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America. Those interviews and more are all available on the Galley featured page: https://galley.cjr.org/featured
This roundtable is designed to be a forum for all of our guests and trusted members of the Galley and CJR communities to discuss the questions raised above, as well as anything else they feel like contributing. If you would like to participate but haven't yet been trusted by a member of the Galley team, just request access and we will help you out. Jump in any time.
Victor Pickard: Hi everyone - really happy to participate in this great discussion and I want to again thank Mathew and Josh for hosting it.
I thought I might jump in now, especially since I am on London time and cocktail hour is approaching. There's much to say in response to Mathew's great questions above. One question I've had is whether we should even be calling it a "government bailout"?
If we are to move the conversation beyond describing journalism as if it were primarily an industry that produces commodities and is most concerned about profitability to something that should be seen as an essential public service (that we need regardless of its profitability, which is usually the major indicator of success for a commercial enterprise), I am wondering if "bailout" is the right frame?
A related problem is that "bailout" suggests this is just one special case in which government needs to step in and help out a suffering industry - but we know that these market failures will last far beyond the pandemic. Shouldn't these be permanent subsidies?
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