Keep government money out of journalism industry

The journalism industry faces many challenges and is in desperate need of reinvention. Journalism’s credibility is in shambles, newspapers are closing, and citizens are disengaging from news consumption. Somebody needs to come up with visionary solutions to address these problems.

That somebody should not be the government.

But that’s what is happening in California, where state money has been appropriated to provide local “journalism” for “underserved and historically underrepresented” locales around the state. The $25 million program will be coordinated by the University of California-Berkeley School of Journalism. The money was approved as part of a budget bill passed by California legislators and signed earlier this month by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The money will provide stipends to 40 Berkeley fellows who will work in newsrooms around the state.

A glowing press release from the Berkeley School of Journalism lists all kinds of great benefits to this program. Dean Geeta Anand says the program will “strengthen local journalism and democracy” and “enable early career journalists from historically marginalized groups to be able to take entry level jobs.” State senator Steve Glazer, a key supporter of the legislation, says the program will combat disinformation: “Anything we can do to support independent, accurate and credible news coverage will help Californians make informed decisions about government and public policy.” UC Chancellor Carol Christ says the program reflects the campus’s values and priorities.

This all sounds quite noble, but such comments reflect a rather gross misunderstanding of the role of truly independent journalism.

The nation’s framers created a First Amendment-protected free press specifically to keep governments out of the business of producing journalism. The major problem here is that governments are always self-interested. Governments can’t be fully distanced from content they are funding, either directly or indirectly. Real journalism serves a watchdog function of the government. Watchdog reporters being funded by that government necessarily will be chilled, knowing who is paying their stipends.

Sen. Glazer is quoted in the press release saying the program “will be completely independent and operate without any connection to the government or influence from politicians.” That he even has to preemptively rationalize this concern is a backhanded acknowledgement that this is a tainted program. State government money just isn’t spent without politicians expecting a particular benefit to themselves or to get a certain outcome.

The fact that the government established this program and funds it automatically reduces its function as journalism. No number of independent oversight boards or commissions will fully insulate these journalists. Somebody will have to select the journalist fellows, and that selection process itself will have political implications. Applicants will surely be screened for proper ideological adherence to Berkeley’s “values and priorities.”

This initiative needs to be labeled for what it really is — an unabashed effort to push certain news agendas into communities by “the enlightened” who think they know what’s best for the little people.

It’s a safe bet these Berkeley fellows won’t be reporting about the need for energy independence, securing the border, cracking down on crime or limiting government spending. Setting the public agenda in a community is a serious responsibility. A key concern here is whether that agenda will meet the needs of the targeted underserved communities (however that’s supposed to be defined) or the interests of the program overseers.

Billing this program as a benevolent effort to provide accurate news presumes that people in the targeted communities want outsiders parachuting in to tell them their own business. An informed citizenry is certainly a good thing, but that doesn’t mean outsider money and fellows planted in traditional news outlets are the best ways to accomplish that goal.

Communities have many avenues to inform themselves today outside of the pathways of traditional journalism. People exchange information and ideas through social media, individual blogs, podcasts and even informal conversations. Grass roots dissemination of information might well be preferable to establishment media structures whose own credibility and motivations have been called into question, based on national polling.

For the elite agenda setters, it is not that these underserved communities are lacking relevant information, it’s that the citizens in those communities don’t have the elites’ version of information.

Local journalism can serve an essential function in communities and citizens do need accurate and credible information on which to base civic decisions. But it is up to local citizens to figure out what information they need and establish the mechanisms to disseminate it. Self-congratulating politicians and university administrators need to keep their agendas and their money out of local journalism.

Jeffrey M. McCall is a media critic and professor of communication at DePauw University. He has worked as a radio news director, a newspaper reporter and as a political media consultant. Follow him on Twitter @Prof_McCall.