'Free Press' Group Wants State to Control the Media

The radical outfit … er … “media reform” group, doesn’t put it that way, of course. But that’s what it wants. And as anyone who lived in the Soviet Union could testify, a state-run media is the antithesis of “free.” As I’ve often said (in so many words) around here, “Free Press” should rename themselves “State Press,” because they don’t advocate for the public. They advocate for the state.

Anyway, Heartland friend Adam Thierer at Technology Liberation Front took a look at the comments the Marxist-founded group submitted to the Federal Trade Commission’s upcoming workshop titled “How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?” As Thierer summarizes:

1. Nothing the private sector can do will save journalism (unless it is entirely non-profit / non-commercial in nature);

2. Even if there was something that private players could do to save journalism, Free Press would likely have federal authorities forbid it anyway (especially if it involved new business ownership patterns or combinations); and,

3. The only thing that can really save journalism is a “public option” for the press in the form of massive state subsidization of media in this country.

Thierer doesn’t make that last statement lightly. He outlines in his TLF post how Free Press wants Congress to create a $50 billion “trust fund” for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting to dole out to struggling media outlets. And, as Thierer notes, “the Free Press plan doesn’t end with public bailouts for media. A welfare system for journalists is next on the list.” How so?

Read on at the From the Heartland blog

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