This House would subsidise news media outlets

I am grapeful to CitrusHavoc (or something or other) for his response. I agree that typically I would be lazy about responding, but with the week I have ahead, I'll have to force myself to actually be productive ahead of a deadline (Is that . .. even. .. . legal? )Kiwi go again. My opponent believes my arguments are bananas, and insists on raisin up a bunch of fuss about them, but I apple-lutely disagree. I will show you, once again, that the core of his plan is still flawed. Since my opponent ruined my perfectly good method of organization, I'll be forced to adopt his method of rebuttals. (Sigh)R1: Some outlets are still turning a profitI accept that the decrease in print journalism is industry-wide. That was not my point. My point is that, while my opponent is arguing through appeal to emotion to save the great and fabulous Times, there are other hard working newspapers that are still in business that don't require the subsidy. Giving their competitors money to keep them afloat is essentially killing the free market! There would be no reason why a paper wouldn't just overcirculate itself to reach the masses of people, because it would make an eventual profit through taxpayer dollars. Meanwhile, fiscally responsible papers like the NY Times, who have worked hard to beat the competition and earn a profit, would be done in by the government. R2: The companies will not be lost, provided they adaptIf a company wants to stay in business, it will adapt to market itself solely to its audience, and learn to do so in a way that is profitable. If this means solely targeting the elderly that my opponent states reads the paper, then they should do as such. If this means cutting half their staff, then let it be done. The government can't be allowed to interfere with the free market, though. We would simply be perpetuating the use of, as in my previous analogy, VHS over DVD. It's nto as efficient, and people won't buy it anyways. R3: The people are satisfied through free marketMy opponent's argument here make no sense. He argues that a significant portion of the population read print journalism, but that they don't because print journalism is dying, but that they do because if print journalism died we'd have a bunch of uneducated voters on our hands, but theres not enough voters being educated through these papers to keep these companies afloat. Listen, it's very simple. When the need for print journalism dies, the industry will be dead. As long as there are people willing to pay for print journalism, there will be a way to get them print journalism. This is the beauty of free market. In fact, my plan doesn't even state that we need to get rid of print journalism, just that the outdated tech will die its natural death. We should stop this plan to use the defibrillator on the industry that's dying of blood loss. R4: Plan doesn't cover internet newsWhatever my opponent's intentions were do not matter. Internet journalism isn't covered. As a result, this government subsidy to the outdated methods of distributing news will naturally tip the scales against internet journalism, which will be counter-productive for societal progress. R5: Plan is unneededIt was just a simple Con rebuttal away from being a true statement once more. .. R6: NAE can't be stopped by the governmentI apologize for my misunderstanding. R6 is now irrelevant. R7: Internet is rapidly becoming the source for newsI think my opponent's point speaks in my favor. No matter how slow the transition is, it is still a natural transition. My opponent even states that there is clearly still a market for print journalism. That's great. Print journalism is still necessary, and therefore, still in the market. Once the need goes away (probably in the next few generations) then people will be fully reliable on internet/tv/the holonet (Star Wars reference) etc. for news. There is absolutely no reason to mess with the process, because it would just be counter-productive. R8: Some countries don't have the fundsMy opponent concedes this. We'd be forcing countries already either barely scraping by, or riddled with debt, to be spending even more money. This alone should be reason enough to support the plan, but sadly is still just one of many (more heavily disputed) issues with it. R9: Plan violates Constitutionality (sovreignty)My opponent made it seem as if this plan would be implemented whether or not countries accepted it. In the future, I'd appreciate it if he added a seperate line such as "assuming it is ratified by all constitutional processes in respective countries" etc. If he is going to assume that these countries would each pass legislation putting this into act, I am almost ok with that. But this plan still has an issue with sovreignty that I'd like to point out. It assumes that the U. S. government would adopt (into legislature) a plan that will affect the freedom of speech. By promoting print journalism, it allows for the expressions of those print journalists to be governmentally funded and promoted. Whether or not the government chooses where the funds go is irrelevant. These outlets would still recieve government funding. Therefore, this plan violates the United States Constitution. But since it is assumed it will pass through the U. S. , it violates U. S. sovreignty. R10: Plan is vagueMy opponent is trying to dodge the bullet headed striaght for his plan's head. If he does not have a plan that solves the world's issues, then why propose that each country adopt it? My points here are A) With no fixed rate, any number may be specified. No matter who does the specifying, this is bad. If this plan was truly beneficial to the world, my opponent would make sure the world followed the plan, rather than allowing countries to allocate no funds to their NAE, making this plan even more useless than it currently is. B) With no specificity about who makes up the NAE, then our number crunchers could be biased. There is literally no accountability from our mysteriously vague accountants. While my opponent would try to argue that it is all statistically based, who's counting the statistics does matter. Just like in elections, it is all about who gets the most votes, but who's counting the ballots does matter, doesn't it? You can't assume the NAE is honest, and therefore, the vague understanding of who makes up this organization is a fatal blow to the plan. But my opponent would not have wanted to specify. As he himself said, it would be reckless to give precise details of a magical fix-it-all plan. That way, there might be some visible flaws, instead of the ones lurking in the shadows. (Such as the fact that most countries don't need nor want such subsidies, and will legislate no funding towards them)So we see that, either way, this plan is useless. If countries give money to the print journalists, then they're perpetuating outdated technology and ruining the free market. But if they use the loophole that Pro provided in his own plan (which makes it appear he doesn't have confidence it will benefit all countries) then the plan is useless anyways, seeing as it won't be used. R11: The NAE demands would go unmetI have been enlightened on the further details of Pro's plan, now. I understand that the NAE doesn't specify how much funding, but only who recieves it. This, of coures, makes them all the more dangerous, but is beside this point's. .. er. .. point. In the end, I've shown that there was no "jam" I was in, except for the fig-ment of my opponent's imagination.