We already subsidise journalism heavily. The ABC's budget for 2011-12 was $995 million. SBS got $223 million in the same period. And Parliament has specifically nominated the vast bulk of this money to ''inform, educate and entertain audiences''.
So it's peculiar that when media theorists devise clever schemes to subsidise journalism in order to protect democracy — such as publicly funded newspapers, or tax-deductibility for the print media — they rarely mention the money we give SBS and the ABC for that purpose.
Perhaps some people believe we should increase those broadcasters' budgets. That's a legitimate debate. Let's all draw lines and argue it out. But pretending we do not already spend an enormous amount of the public's money to inform the public is simply dishonest.
Our media debate is very provincial. Fairfax is at a crossroads. News Ltd is too, although that company is reluctant to admit it. Here, the US is about two to three years ahead of us. Their experience suggests the print media will shrink dramatically in the next few years. But it also tells us good journalism is good journalism, whether produced on paper or online.
I hope our two print giants develop new business models that suit the times. Certainly many others will. The online media in the US is vibrant and plentiful. Australian readers and writers have good reason to be optimistic, at least about the medium-term future.
If they want to be taken seriously, advocates of subsidies have to answer some basic questions. How many media outlets does healthy democracy require? We might assume more is better than fewer. But as the past year has demonstrated, many people believe some newspapers and radio stations should be run out of town. Several media critics suggest tabloids and talkback radio are hurting democracy. So just calling for ''more journalism'' is not much of a guide for policy-making.
Maybe the government should subsidise only ''worthy'' journalism, if there was a way to define such a thing. The business of the press has always been intimately connected with delivering something people want to read or watch. Right now, the case for even more journalism subsidies is little more than a thought bubble.
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