{"id":1333,"date":"2008-09-12T08:31:18","date_gmt":"2008-09-12T07:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=1333"},"modified":"2008-09-12T08:54:54","modified_gmt":"2008-09-12T07:54:54","slug":"government-funded-journalism-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2008\/09\/government-funded-journalism-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Government funded journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

E<\/span>ric Beecher<\/strong>, publisher of Aussie online phenomenon Crikey<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, and a former editor of the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em><\/strong>, has views<\/a> on the decline of what he calls ‘public trust’ journalism:<\/p>\n

I believe Australian politicians and policy makers should at least contemplate a world devoid of large-scale commercial quality journalism. Which is not to advocate the concept of government-owned newspapers or the creation of a government fund to pay for commercial journalism or anything like those things.<\/p>\n

But the looming prospect of greatly diminished quality journalism in Australia, and the consequences of that prospect on the virility of the democratic debate in Australia, is in my view a discussion about market failure that is, at least, a subject worthy of debate rather than derision.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He tiptoes up to the door of govt-funded journalism, rings the bell and runs away (thank goodness I never do things like that). As one of his commenters notes:<\/p>\n

If you think it\u2019s market failure, if you think there\u2019s a genuine externality that requires correction from a government actor, then go ahead and say it, and be prepared to defend it…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s no problem with government-funded journalism. Governments fund radical, establishment-challenging art, plays, music, operas – you name it. But that funding comes at a price. And the price is irrelevance. <\/p>\n

That’s the real problem, and – as I’ve said before – it’s a not problem for journalism, it’s a problem for the societies in which we live. It has at its root the obsolescence of our public institutions and governance. I don’t say decline because I grew up loathing many of them (well, I did want to be a journalist) – but there is no debate about the politics of the post-public world, and little acknowledgement that it is the world in which we live. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Beecher, publisher of Aussie online phenomenon Crikey, and a former editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, has views on the decline of what he calls ‘public trust’ journalism:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1801,1802,1803,1770],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","tag-australia","tag-beecher","tag-online-phenomenon","tag-sydney-morning-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1336,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions\/1336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}