I completely agree that it's not *inherently* more corrupting – it's the optics that concern me as well as the practical implementation of funding local news on a national scale. If there's state/local government participation required in this (as another commenter mentioned and seems relatively likely if you want to replace local newsro…
I completely agree that it's not *inherently* more corrupting – it's the optics that concern me as well as the practical implementation of funding local news on a national scale. If there's state/local government participation required in this (as another commenter mentioned and seems relatively likely if you want to replace local newsrooms), the potential for this well-intentioned funding to be captured by bad actors spikes extremely high. It just seems like a situation where throwing government money at this problem is likelier to result in a huge mess than it is to resurrect the glory days of local news.
Yes there are potential conflicts of interest and implementation issues, but a democratically elected government funding news outlets seems to be by definition a better scenario for we the people than a news industry that's utterly reliant on billionaires and private equity and hedge funds.
I completely agree that it's not *inherently* more corrupting – it's the optics that concern me as well as the practical implementation of funding local news on a national scale. If there's state/local government participation required in this (as another commenter mentioned and seems relatively likely if you want to replace local newsrooms), the potential for this well-intentioned funding to be captured by bad actors spikes extremely high. It just seems like a situation where throwing government money at this problem is likelier to result in a huge mess than it is to resurrect the glory days of local news.
Yes there are potential conflicts of interest and implementation issues, but a democratically elected government funding news outlets seems to be by definition a better scenario for we the people than a news industry that's utterly reliant on billionaires and private equity and hedge funds.