Overlord Give Newsing Media Make Glorious America? Hail the Overlord!

As reported by several in the field, I spoke on a panel at the Society of Professional Journalists this weekend to discuss new-fangled media and what to do about it with old-fangless media strategies.

It went well. There were was an encouraging amount of interaction between the panel, admittedly old-school journalists, Journalism Professors, and students.

I say it went well, although the question persists, but no one walking into that room thought anything would be resolved. One question, from our moderator, the Demozette's John "Supa" Krupa, unnerved me a little bit. I hadn't thought about it until I saw the question in writing before the gig was set to launch.

"Do you think the government should subsidize or 'bail out' newspapers?"

I think I wrapped up that question quickly and then yielded my time to Conan "Cannon Galaxy" Gallaty and this other guy. But I began to wonder later that day if people had actually been mulling this idea around.

The answer to this has to be no. The answer to this has to be H-E-double hockey sticks no.

I spoke briefly and most boringly about taking steps backward philosophically to figure out what it truly means to be a distributor of information and what it means to be a journalist.

I have always thought, even before landing bass-aackward into this job, that one of the most important roles a newspaper (and even the news without the paper-attachment) could play was that of the foil to government. It is, in my humble opinion, a necessary check and balance.

This is an often quoted, and probably ill-referenced example, but Watergate worked through a newspaper. Woodward and Bernstein brought down a now obviously corrupt executive branch. That's a clear example. But delivering information does more than just topple the oppressive. It serves as a political conduit. Politicians and constituents alike gauge on another, often, by what they read about one another in the paper.

And a paper will never write anything that impugns its owner. Ever.

Whether or not the news comes on gray paper with smudgy ink isn't the issue for me. Like Michael Kinsley said in the Washington Post, it's all going to be alright. People will figure out how to monetize the news.

That being said, the news businesses, including our own, will need to innovate these ways to monetize quickly, or be lost along the wayside. But government ownership — and that's what it would be, ownership; not Stephens Media or Gannett, but United States Media or Government — would pose such a tremendous conflict of interest that it would border on making this blessed service news provides and turning into propaganda.

Anyway, I read the press releases from government officials. They're lousily written.