This House would subsidise news media outlets

I’m currently in a funny part of Europe where Internet access is somewhat sparse, so I’d appreciate it if he could post his response as late as possible? (Don’t worry if not though. ) As for my being squeezed… BRING IT. I intend to make you into JAM, JustinAMoffatt (see what I did there? ). On to actual debating now… Proposition’s Proposal This House would, in each jurisdiction, create a new national executive agency, the National Audience Executive (herein referred to as the NAE). This executive would, on one national platform, be responsible for measuring the audiences of all print news outlets (such as The Times [UK], or The New York Times) – a task which thus far has been performed by the news outlets themselves and not a national agency – and also the audiences of news radio stations and television news channels (working closely with agencies such as the BARB [British Audience Ratings Board] in the UK and Nielsen in the USA). Based on these figures, this agency would distribute a certain pot of government funding (which would be increased only in line with inflation) to all news outlets who did not explicitly reject it, on a subsidy basis. The rate would probably be calculated as a certain number of cents/pence per recorded audience member reached. This agency would work independent of government interference, judging for itself what qualifies as a ‘news outlet’ and being in itself responsible for the collection and measurement of the aforementioned data. The subsidies awarded would be reviewed every 24 months, so as to respond to changing levels of readership/audience for each outlet. I will now move on to detail why this plan should be executed with my first few substantives. Substantive I: It will support the continued existence of print journalism Everyone in print journalism knows that their medium is at risk of dying. To take a strong example from the UK; Britain’s most well-known and well-respected newspaper The Times is suspected to run at a heavy loss every year [1]. It is sustained, in part, because of Rupert Murdoch’s reluctance to allow his favourite broadcast medium – print media – to die. We can see, therefore, that many newspapers are struggling to survive, and many are kept going at an extreme loss because of their name and their stature. Imagine, for example, what would happen if The New York Times were suddenly to go under: it would be deemed a huge loss both for the USA’s domestic press and for the press around the world. Therefore, we feel that we need to prevent the total fall of news media, and this could be achieved via government subsidy. Moreover, it is in the government’s interest to do this, as newspapers play a key role in the political process: informing the population. Crucially: older people are the most likely to read daily newspapers, and they are thus the most informed – and they’re also the most likely, statistically, to vote [2]. If we therefore assume a link between being politically informed and being politically active, it is in the government’s interest to support print journalism through subsidy. Substantive II: It allows continued business competition without overregulation One of the big issues with what we propose is the risk of state ‘intervention’ in the freedom of the press, which is enshrined in both the US Constitution and various Acts of Parliament in the UK. Our proposal, however, still allows competition to be maintained, as the amount of funding distributed is proportional to the readership of a particular newspaper or the viewership of a news channel – yet still allows the proportion of funding to change over time and thus recognise the changing viewing tastes of the population and allowing new players to enter the market. This plan would not, in any way, give a ‘dying’ newspaper or radio station an undue advantage, because an outlet with a higher audience will be receiving a larger share of the pot. Equally, the NAE’s independence from government intervention means that the government cannot intervene to support a friendly newspaper at risk of bankruptcy. Therefore, our proposal maintains the same basic economic instability of the existing market while simultaneously encouraging news corporations to keep non-Internet news outlets running. Substantive III: It will encourage greater representation of the news on television and radio When Channel 5 launched in the UK over Easter 1997, it promised something never seen before, or since, on a non-rolling news network: hourly news updates during advert breaks [3] (except during films, as the adverts kept proclaiming. Nothing interrupts movies! ). This was dropped a few years later, but Proposition believes this is an excellent precedent which other mainstream terrestrial channels should follow. News broadcasting is slowly disappearing from mainstream channels, being moved over to cable networks and websites with perhaps one or two news bulletins per day. Channel 5 has moved from having news updates every hour to just two to three (albeit longer) bulletins per day. These bulletins might seem slightly old fashioned in the modern day, but research suggests that a significant part of the population receive the news the same way their parents do: via television (or radio) news bulletins and via reading daily newspapers. We have already detailed more specific arguments for newspapers, but the principle stands. If we want to encourage better participation in democracy, and a better sense of citizenship, it is necessary to make the news a bigger presence on mainstream television and radio. By subsidising it in the manner proposed by Pro, we can do just that. I will introduce more substantives in the next round, but those are the key elements of my argument. I look forward to watching JamJam try and stop me. ¡Hasta la vista! [1] . http://www.theguardian.com...[2] . http://www.telegraph.co.uk...[3] . http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk...