As you may know, the mainstream media is going through massive layoffs, to which a paraphrase of the great Oscar Wilde line comes to mind—one has to have a heart of stone not to laugh at massive media layoffs, given the increasing partisan mendacity and advancing mediocrity of the mainstream media.
So guess what is proposed to reverse this dire situation? Behold The Jacobin (which is certainly an appropriate name for the publication):
US Media Is Collapsing. Here’s How to Save It.
Mass layoffs are tearing through US media. To preserve a functioning media ecosystem, we need three things: immediate aid to struggling journalists, public subsidies to smaller news outlets, and eventually industry transformation into a publicly funded system.
In other words, welfare for journalists. Many of whom went to fancy universities and graduate journalism programs. In other words, another forced wealth transfer from working class Americans to elites. Rush Limbaugh used to mock our “state-run media,” and now the left is calling literally for state-run media.
In fact some of this is already starting to happen. The Jacobin story notes:
New Jersey and California are experimenting with a media subsidy model. In 2022, California governor Gavin Newsom modeled a necessary response to the collapse of local news by signing California Assembly Bill 179, which provided $25 million for local reporting in underrepresented places. Government policy to stop the collapse of our media infrastructure is not only feasible but already underway.
There are parts of this story that I wonder might be an elaborate satire:
We should, for example, consider a return to a Works Progress Administration (WPA) model, where 6,600 reporters were sent out into the field, underwritten by the government, as part of the New Deal’s response to the Great Depression, covering the lives of some of the poorest Americans.
C.S. Lewis used to recommend that people only read the sports page, because there at least half the news would be true. But if we really do “transform” our media into state-sponsored outlets, even sports news will be fake (as is already is when it comes to gender participation).
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