This House would subsidise news media outlets

I’m now back in the UK (umm… huzzah? ) so he can feel free to respond at his own leisure. Though, since we’re both somewhat lazy teenagers, anyone religiously watching this debate probably won’t notice any change in pace. I’d like to thank my opponent for his streamlined version of my plan which I grapefully accept and am happy to be referenced for the rest of the debate. I am now going to issue some rebuttal to show that, while Jammy-jam-jam McDodgemeister is a fruit-iful specimen of a man and a debater, his arguments are bananas. Rebuttal I: “Some outlets, such as… are still turning a profit. ” My opponent is as guilty as I (allegedly) am of cherry picking on this point. I have provided a counter-source from The Guardian (I’m not obsessed with this newspaper, honest) [4] which demonstrates that the decline of print journalism is industry wide. In the UK, despite the launch of a new daily newspaper, circulation still went down by over 6% in 12 months in the year 2010/2011 – and this was before the closure of the UK’s most popular newspaper, The News of the World, in the aftermath of a phone hacking scandal (referenced later). Point? Yes, some newspapers are bucking the trend and adapting in new ways (though I will combat this later) – but this phenomenon is an undeniable trend affecting the vast majority of newspapers. Rebuttal II: “The companies will not [be lost], provided they adapt. ” My opponent references the example of The Times improving the digital aspect of their business, but he conveniently forgets to mention one thing. In order to make this viable, they have had to go subscription-only, and introduce a ‘paywall’. In terms of readership this was an utter disaster [5] with visits to the Times Online declining by 87%. Point? Print journalism is only workable as print journalism. Either it dies or we support it in its old form, but the middle ground often fails purely because making it pay for itself – by introducing charges – is hugely unpopular. Rebuttal III: “This way, the people are always satisfied [referring to the free market]. ” Con, highly conveniently, drops my point about old people needing print journalism (try showing your grandmother how to get through a paywall – as I did – and you will realise it is a fruitless waste of time). The free market serves populism – allowing what is popular to survive, but not necessarily what is necessary. My arguments say that the necessity of print journalism outweighs its declining popularity. In this situation, it is worth intervening in free market economics. Rebuttal IV: “Note that my opponent’s plan does not subsidise internet-based news. ” This is a question I’m glad my opponent brought up. This is not, funnily enough, because internet news is more popular and perhaps less in need of subsidisation – as gaining profit from the Internet can be difficult for news organisations (as The Times have discovered). The reason, however, is that what qualifies as ‘news’ is much more difficult to measure on the Internet – does a gossip blog count as news? Would The Onion or something similar count? And equally, how do we measure circulation? Do we include retweets and shares on Facebook? So that’s why the Internet is not included – not due to a bias in favour of any particular type of journalism. Rebuttal V: “You see that my opponent’s plan is unneeded. ” I feel I have covered my rebuttal of this point, and brought this into my rebuttal so it would not appear that I dropped it. Rebuttal VI: “We’re left with an agency… that can’t be stopped by the government. ” I think my opponent has slightly misunderstood my point here. When I said this agency was independent of government, I meant that the government would not be able to influence which newspapers receive funding – so for example a Democratic government favouring Democrat-leaning newspapers in the USA. The amount of money received by the agency would, of course, be controlled by the government – anything else would be unconstitutional – it is the distribution which would be kept away from its power. Given the lack of any provided objection to this, I will assume this point has been dealt with. Rebuttal VII: “The internet is rapidly becoming the source of news. ” The Internet is indeed growing as a medium, that much I concede. But your comparisons with VHS and DVD fall flat because those transitions happened very quickly. As my source demonstrates [6] DVD was embraced by the US public very quickly and only took a few years to overtake VHS in sales and later in rentals. But rivals for commercial newspapers have existed since the advent of radio – with radio news – and since the advent of both terrestrial and later cable television. If print journalism is so awful and in such dire need of replacement, why didn’t it die in the 90s? There is clearly still a market for the continued existence of print journalism and still a lot of people who will stick with newspapers – not least the older generations as I have previously mentioned. This is not just due to stubbornness. And the Trification Thesis dictates that people fall into three patterns of news consumption: some are, probably like you and I, using Internet news and watching cable news networks. Some are sticking to televised news broadcasts and newspapers. But the third group just aren’t getting the news at all and – as I mentioned and you dropped – that group is very dangerous indeed. Rebuttal VIII: “Some countries don’t have the funds to support the media in their country. ” That is a decent point and I accept it as a weakness of the plan. But I don’t suggest that Sierra Leone has to spend as much as the USA. The scale of spending would obviously be scaled to match the nation’s economic capabilities and also their stage in the digital transition – some countries are not as advanced as the UK or the USA in terms of Internet usage et cetera. Rebuttal IX: “This plan violates national sovereignty. ” Well, each nation would obviously have to pass the relevant legislation to empower this change. I think that much was obvious. But the fact that it requires legislation to enact is not an argument against it. Rebuttal X: “The plan is vague. ” Because it would be completely reckless of me to give precise details of some magic one-size-fits-all plan because, as I’ve mentioned before, each country works differently. It would be made up in most cases of civil servants and they literally just crunch numbers. Since they work entirely from measured statistics, who they are is relatively unimportant, as bias is out of the question. Point? I’m sorry if you thought the plan was vague, but the fallacy fallacy is not a valid argument. I’ve justified it being mildly non-specific, and I note that this entire substantive is ad hominem on account of me being vague, and not actually combatting the merits of the plan. Rebuttal XI: “The numbers needed to match the request of the almighty NAE would go unmet. ” Reread my plan: the NAE receives a fixed pot tied only to inflation and all it does – ALL IT DOES – is distribute it proportionally between the qualifying outlets. There would be no question of it demanding more money – it literally exists as a neutral distribution channel to reduce government bias. All of Con’s points have been dealt with but I’m out of characters, so there will be no new substantives (Con can match that if he wishes). Anything I would have put in a substantive has been part of my rebuttal. Well, Jammy-jam-jam McDodgemeister Moffatt, orange you going to have fun getting yourself out of this mess? :P [4] . http://www.theguardian.com... [5] . http://www.bbc.co.uk... [6] . http://www.washingtontimes.com...