If Government Rewrites News
Ken McIntyre /
If you liked how the government shoved its nose into high finance, “green” energy, automaking and health care, you’re gonna love what it does with your local news.
That’s the prospect opened by a new study from an old-line bastion of objectivity, the Columbia School of Journalism, on how the storied trade of news reporting won’t survive unless Team Obama comes to the rescue.
Now “at risk,” former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. and Columbia communication professor Michael Schudson melodramatically declare in an op-ed in today’s Post, is “reporting that holds accountable those with power and influence.”
The way to keep those powerful government and business players honest, Downie and Schudson essentially conclude in pushing Columbia’s report, is to give news organizations freezers full of cash from government agencies and business-supported foundations.