Matt writes, "despite the theory that the 'freak show' builds ratings and sells papers, the reality is that television, newspaper, and magazine journalism are all in long-term structural decline steadily losing audience. It's almost as if people don't, in fact, want to watch the news covered in a stupid manner but actually would be somewhat interested in learning important information about the world." I'm not sure the troubled business model of the news suggests that at all. Rather, it could be that large masses of people don't really want to watch the news, are somewhat more likely to watch sensationalized news, but would frankly prefer to watch the Simpsons. And that's okay. This argument won't be won by appealing to hypothetical business models in which policy commentary becomes really profitable. Rather, the news, like other things in life, should not be seen as a straight commodity. It is not there to turn a profit. It is there to keep our democracy healthy and our public informed. If that means it can't be appropriately subsidized through advertising, and needs public subsidies in a blind trust, or some sort of philanthropic revenue scheme, then so be it. Other countries do this, and do it well. But either the way, the bottom line should be that if it turns out that responsible news reporting isn't profitable, then we should sacrifice the profitability, not the responsible news reporting.
