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Writing Sample #1
10 Nov 2010
US Journalism
Can newspapers and scholarly journalism survive? Currently, journalists across the
country are losing their jobs and Newspaper companies are being forced to downsize and
outsource to stay in business. This journalism “crisis” is primarily a result of internet and
24-hour cable, which together have created a consumption culture that has come to rely on
instant and free news sources (Bird, Future, 293). People are now able to find an
abundance of news without moving from their computer screen and without having to
purchase a newspaper. Citizen journalists and bloggers take articles from professional
journalists and deconstruct them and relay the information in different forums. However,
this process has positive and negative effects. News and information sharing is no longer a
one-way discourse from corporation to reader, but it is now a horizontal and vertical
partnership where the citizen has a much stronger voice then in the past. Unfortunately,
this new freedom translates into loss of revenue for companies, less jobs for journalists and
in the end the reduction of news quality and quantity (Bird, Future, 294). Therefore, the
media industry is being forced to rethink the traditional business model of newspapers, and
many have looked to European subsidy models as a possible solution to the American
crisis. So, can these European models benefit the future of American journalism? I would
argue that, yes, it is quite possible for a subsidy model to benefit the stubborn, liberalized
American journalists because a subsidy plan will be able to support floundering but
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financial buffer and an incubation period for the newspaper companies to discover how to
European Democratic Corporatist and Polarized Pluralist countries. There are two
different types of subsidies that are generally employed by European countries, direct and
indirect. Direct subsidies are generally immediate cash benefits that are awarded on a need
basis, and indirect subsidies are any legislation that help foster a more economically
(Murschetz 291). Many of these countries sponsor a wide variety of political parties, and it
is subsequently essential to their government system that numerous voices can be heard.
Therefore, European governments have taken measures to guarantee that their political
countries give their newspaper companies lump sums of money annually in order to keep
them from going out of business. Sweden has a particularly intricate subsidy system that
allocates “money to all papers except the dominant paper in a given region or city”
(Nordenson 40). Under this system Sweden has seen a substantial reduction in newspaper
bankruptcy. Also, the most important factor in the Sweden system is that subjectivity was
removed by creating strict and automatic laws that specify who is awarded benefits and
how much. Therefore, politicians are not an aspect of the subsidy process. This degree of
separation allows for an objective and efficient system of subsidies that is able to directly
After examining some of the European subsidy concepts it should be quite plain
that if crafted properly many of these ideas could be very viable options in the American
model. The most immediate way that subsidies can support the failing newspaper industry
is by becoming a financial buffer. Therefore, in order to combat the drop in sales due to
internet competition, the U.S. government should step in and save the plummeting
newspaper business. The primary goal of the U.S. government should be the preservation
of quality news that is accessible by the general public. Right now infotainment and
sensationalized news is the easiest platform for being commercially successful, however it
also maintains little value to the health of democracy. So, when companies downsize their
journalist department in favor of a tabloid section the public loses access to quality
information. One possible way to mend this problem would be a government subsidy that
awarded money for specific use on salaries and the maintenance costs of investigative
journalists. This way businesses could still create the high-revenue tabloid sections if they
Sweden uses. If smaller companies are unable to support hard journalism and the United
States is therefore slowly losing its information basis it would be logical for the
democracy. If the U.S. embraced the Swedish model then any newspaper except the
dominant one in each region would be awarded a cash reimbursement, which would allow
them to maintain a high level of journalistic production. These newspapers could use the
money to cover the expensive costs of salary journalists or the costs that are lost by the
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recent decrease of weekly sales. No matter where the money was distributed it would act
The third potential scenario in which a subsidy model could provide a financial
organizations. This indirect subsidy could be easily achieved if the tax laws were amended
corporations. In this scenario, companies could save millions on taxes. Also, Joe
Mathewson came up with the idea that congress could encourage newspaper gifts “by
allowing the company to deduct the full value of the newspaper as a charitable
deductibility” (Overholser 16). Ingenuity such as this is what the American newspaper
industry needs right now, and subsidies are a unique way to support journalism. The larger
companies would most likely not want to become not-for-profit, however local newspapers
across the country would be granted a great opportunity to lower their operating costs.
research grants that would establish an incubation period while intellectuals developed a
commercially viable internet campaign. Companies still have not discovered a way to
produce positive gains through internet news, except by specializing in sensationalized and
lifestyle articles. The internet is currently more of a leach then a support system. It is
extremely difficult to acquire readers willing to pay a subscription fee, and as soon as news
is posted online or in print it is utilized by bloggers to create their own content. However,
profitable internet scheme for the newspaper industry. She also claims that online
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readership is rising much faster then the loss of print readers, but the problem is newspaper
companies are lagging in their attempt to “connect innovations with financial success”
(Journalism’s Search, 1). If the government could partner with this effort then their may
liberal country such as the U.S., subsidies are a real option for aiding newspaper
author Dan Hallin the fear that government support will hinder American press freedom is
proved false by the European subsidy models (Nordenson 41). Countries such as Sweden
have illustrated that subsidies do not hinder democracy, but they promote the spread of
diverse and accurate information. The financial failure of traditional journalistic centers
could result in the tragic loss of vital democratic values such as access to quality forms of
information. Therefore, it is not only possible for European type subsidy models to create
a financial buffer for companies and an incubation period for the development of new
technologies; it is crucial that the U.S. government begins to explore new options for the
Works Cited
Murschetz, Paul. “State Support for the Daily Press in Europe: A Critical Appraisal:
Nordenson, Bree. “The Uncle Sam Solution: Can the Government Help the Press? Should