Yesterday, Wall Street wiz Steve Rattner used the unlikely platform of the Wall Street Journal to appeal for publicly-funded journalism in the United States:

We could create a pool of money (possibly from a license fee similar to how the BBC is funded). News organizations with an expensive but important project in mind could apply for funding, much the way producers in the public television world have for the last 40 years. Philanthropy could also play a role here, as Joan Kroc did when she left NPR a $200 million kitty.

We’ve had experience in the past – the New York City subways come to mind – with businesses that began as conventional, for-profit corporations, and, for one reason or another, were later rendered unprofitable while still being viewed as essential services. It’s time to apply some creative thinking to newspapers and, for that matter, to serious journalism in other media. Then we need to convince Americans that they should pay attention to it – and pay for it.

Rattner’s piece will be music to some ears. Unsurprisingly I’m with Slate‘s Jack Shafer, who whacks Steve straight into the covers:

Shouldn’t Rattner, who is the managing principal of Quadrangle Group LLC and “focused on the firm’s $2.9 billion media and communications private equity business,” be advising newspaper companies on how to make money and not how to surrender elegantly?

And again:

For a major capitalist addressing the nation’s top capitalist audience on the subject of capitalist media, Rattner is embarrassingly short on business specifics. He essentially believes that the newspaper industry, which sits atop a $45 billion ad market, should be treated like the ballet or other charitable causes.

…Rattner’s piece neglects to mention that for better than 50 years newspaper companies have feasted on their advertisers, charging steep ad rates everywhere and confiscatory rates wherever they owned the only daily. Now that the Web is underselling them on the ad front and other media are stealing eyeballs, should we weep for them? Or should they stop the blubbering, quit wishing for the return of 1975, and start competing? I obviously think so.