Is Government-Subsidized News on the Way?
Alex Adrianson /
Is the Federal Communications Commission building a case for government-subsidized news? It’s not hard to imagine that will be the outcome of the Commission’s “Future of Media” inquiry. The digital age has produced a “democratic shortfall,” according to one source cited in the inquiry’s public notice. Another scholar working on the project for the FCC has said that today’s media abundance calls for “public media entities” that will serve “as both a filter to reduce information overload and a megaphone to give voice to the unheard.”
In other words, a free marketplace of ideas isn’t good enough for some. They want the government to pick winners and losers—as long as the winners express views with which they happen to agree. Care to guess which views those will be? (more…)