The Wrong Way to Reinvent Media, Part I: Taxes on Consumer Electronics, Mobile Phones & Broadband

With many traditional media operators struggling, and questions being raised about how journalism in particular will be supported in the future,1 Washington policymakers are currently considering what role government can and should play in helping media providers reinvent themselves in the face of tumultuous technological change wrought by the Digital Revolution.
 
For example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently kicked off a new “Future of Media” effort with a workshop on “Serving the Public Interest in the Digital Era.” Likewise, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has hosted two workshops asking “How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?”  Meanwhile, the Senate has already held hearings about “the future of journalism,” and Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD) recently introduced the “Newspaper Revitalization Act,” which would allow newspapers to become tax-exempt non-profits in an effort to help them stay afloat.

In a series of forthcoming essays leading up to the May 7 filing deadline for the FCC’s “Future of Media” proceeding, we will discuss and critique some of the leading proposals being put forward that would have the government play a greater role in sustaining struggling media enterprises, “saving journalism,” or promoting more “public interest” content. 

In this essay, we discuss an old idea that‘s gained new currency: taxing media devices or distribution systems to fund media content.  We argue that such media income redistribution is fundamentally inconsistent with American press traditions, highly problematic under the First Amendment, difficult to implement in a world of media abundance and platform convergence, and likely to cause serious negative side effects.