On Mon, 25 Jun 2012, Alex Hutton <highspeeddub@gmail.com> wrote:
Getting back to my original point. I really don't see what can be done about people buying up newspapers. Any intervention is going to cause more problems than it would solve. Having a government department decide what can and can't be published or arbitrating on what they decide to be 'unbiased' can hardly be better than simply allowing people to buy and read the newspapers that they like. If a newspaper becomes biased and self-serving, then people are free to read something else.
The government could of course restrict how much of the nation's media is owned by one person or organisation, prevent the people who own the media from forming cartels, and generally do all the things that they used to do before Howard which seemed to work reasonably well.
Another point, in relation to investigative journalism and the cost of it, in the case of commercial investigation, market reports, technical news and that sort of thing, there tends to be a high level of availability of that sort of stuff because there is real value in it. In the case of investigating into issues that governments actively try to obfuscate... it can mean a great deal of work for a journalist to try and get through all the chicanery and bureaucracy. But having a publicly funded / determined unit of investigative journalists for the sake of investigating into government activity and 'making democracy work'... it seems like trying to make two wrongs to make a right. Instead why not just remove as much function of government as possible and allow free enterprise to take over?
Government organisations actually do a good job of policing each other and keeping power in check if they are allowed to do so. This is why every country that you would want to live in has a separation of powers. When government functions are removed and free enterprise takes over you end up with a third-world country or a former Soviet state. That destroys most of the legitimate economy as there is a lack of trust and makes things very unpleasant for the citizens. The US is a good example of how these things go. Just read the news reports about bankrupt states and counties that are doing things such as laying off police and neglecting to repair public infrastructure to save money. But if you like that sort of thing then apply for a green-card. With the more efficient deportation of illegal immigrants and making the country less desirable to skilled workers the US should be running short of immigrants in the neat future. It's your chance to live the Libertarian dream! -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/