The Pessimist Blogs
A. Non-profit journalism is captive to ideology, whereas for-profit journalism is —
B. — ‘liberated’ by ads!
A. Please. Just because certain preferences dominate when we make a market of public opinion doesn’t mean it’s not a free market.
B. ‘Liberation isn’t free’ — a ‘freedom isn’t free’ for our times.
This is an old pattern. One of the reasons that newspapers developed objectivity in the 19th century was that advertising displaced political patronage as their major source of revenue. Likewise, when broadcasting was getting started in the 1920s, it was cast as a debate between commercial and propaganda radio. This framing is one of the main reasons we got an advertising model in contrast to the state model that prevailed in most countries until the 1980s. See chapters 7, 10, and 11 of Paul Starr’s Creation of the Media
(Disclosure: Paul was on my committee)
(Irony: Paul’s own magazine is an NGO)
— Gabriel Rossman · Feb 16, 07:37 PM · #