We would be wise to accomplish campaign finance reform that unlinks election money from media and unlinks media money from party coffers. The Constitution gave the press unique freedom of action, not to be cash cows but to protect our liberty as members of a free and informed democracy. We need to take better care of the latter half of this transaction. Yes, you are running businesses but surely there is a level beyond which profit from news is simply indecent. We live in a society after all, not a marketplace.
News is part of our communal experience .
Surely a news operation should be the crown jewel of any corporation . . . They take journalism seriously because they know what a force it can be. In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran, Yugoslavia, journalists play a critical role in civil society . . . Russia's new president Vladimir Putin is hell-bent on silencing the voice of independent media, unless they toe his line. So we can see how crucial a free press is and how it must be protected from not only corporate conglomeration, as we see in the U.S., the oldest democracy, but also centralized control and suppression by tyrannical government, as we see abroad in the younger would-be democracies.