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 Who will report the news?
by Tom Campbell
March 18, 2010
The news business is in free fall. Ad revenues for newspapers are dropping precipitously and papers are responding by cutting staff, eliminating circulation coverage and reducing news content. It is no wonder subscriptions, especially among those under 40, are dwindling. The future for newspapers is so threatened we are told some papers are considering becoming non-profits to receive charitable grants and there is even a move for legislation to provide subsidies to the industry, a horrible idea for many reasons.
TV broadcasters, while not experiencing quite so severe a drop in ad revenues, are facing threats just as serious. The Federal Communications Commission, the regulatory body for broadcasters, is proposing that TV stations give up their broadcasting channels so airwaves can be used for Wi-Fi, Wi-Max and other broadband Internet services.
Advocates say the demand is growing so rapidly that the TV frequencies are needed to serve the public. These are public airwaves, after all, and broadcasters are only licensed to use them. Only 12.6 percent of the populous actually receives over-the-air signals from TV stations. In North Carolina this number is as low as 10 percent. Viewers now watch from cable or satellite providers so proponents say there is no longer the need for broadcasters to occupy these frequencies.
Such a move would serve to guarantee profits for cable and satellite operators, making them the ultimate gatekeepers for the entertainment and news that comes into your home. It will hasten the demise of network offerings on local TV outlets. CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox will tell their local affiliates they no longer need them to deliver their programming, creating huge holes in weekly schedules. The compensation these networks pay stations will automatically cease, programming costs will escalate and TV stations will find themselves at the mercy of a cable industry that can control what tier they are on and how much they charge to transmit the signals of local stations. In addition to another government-created monopoly, this is just bad policy for news dissemination.
If both TV and newspapers have their legs cut out from under them and are no longer profitable, we must ask who will pay for and who will control news reporting. We count on the media to be the check and balance to government, big business and other powerful entities. Would we have changed direction on Vietnam, Watergate, the financial crisis and other cover-ups if the national media had not reported them? In North Carolina would we have known about public corruption, weather threats, health care and other crises if our newspapers and TV stations failed to tell us?
The news media is far from perfect, but they serve as the public conscience, our watchdogs. Some say the public will turn to Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other Internet providers for news, but none have the same credibility, standards or independence as those in our news media. Besides, no reputable news organization exclusively using these media is profitable.
We don’t know how all this will shake out, but we do know it is essential to have a strong, vibrant, self supported fourth estate, without government subsidies or undue regulations. The First Amendment of our Constitution speaks to the importance of free speech, but current situations cause us to question who will report the news? |
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