Why Not Bail Out Buggywhip Makers?

I’m a little behind the times on this one- I had National Guard duty this past weekend- but late last week Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) supported the idea of bailing out newspapers. As a guy who likes newspapers- you know, printed instead of online- I sympathize with the fact that newspapers are going out of business quickly. Unfortunately for my personal desires, that is part of the beauty of creative destruction. As we improve technology, we eliminate inefficiencies in our system, and that is what newspapers increasingly represent.

There is some argument that losing newspapers would lose the generally quality, in-depth reporting that papers pride themselves on. After all, blogs and other online media are not generally renowned for their quality of reporting or in-depth research; they have other strengths, instead. That said, Huffington Post, Fox News, CNN, The Foundry, CNS News and many other sites and news sources are doing a good job of changing that stereotype through hard-hitting reporting, opinions and interviews. As advertising swings more and more online, I suspect old-fashioned reporters will be doing their fine reporting online instead of on paper more and more often. Best of all, they will be able to do it without the government’s money hanging over their heads, subtly or not-so-subtly influencing every decision that is made.

One other flaw with Waxman’s argument: ?There needs to be a consensus within the media industry and the larger community it serves? before the government acts, Waxman said. ?We have to figure out together how to preserve that kind of reporting.? Which media industry will he stop at? The television industry? The online industry? Talk radio? Newspapers? Magazines? Movies? Pornography? Mixed Martial Arts? CNN’s IReporter? If you bail out one, you open the floodgates to bail out the rest. Who’s to say The Economist is more important to society than Sports Illustrated? Both have large readerships, after all, and both represent industries worth billions to the American economy. They provide valuable news to America’s citizens.

Huffington Post has written numerous pieces this year alone defending the value they bring to news and decrying people like Rupert Murdoch for not adjusting to what consumers want. As much as I hate to say it, its writers are correct. Print newspapers provide news a day late, they update once a day and they are just one more thing to carry. Given their support for environmental legislation such as cap-and-trade and fuel standards, liberals such Waxman should be ecstatic that this is happening. Going online saves trees, lowers emissions from vehicles and saves on printing press use (though the servers would need electricity, which causes some harm), among others. The argument that going online will cause harm to our republic is a false one- who says online sources can’t (or don’t, or won’t) continue to use professional journalists? The transition is from print to online- news is still news, though to be fair Americans prefer shorter, less detailed news articles than we used to. But that has been happening even before Twitter and blogs became household names.