Michael Kinsley
Michael Kinsley is a columnist for the Washington Post and the founding editor of Slate.
Recently by Michael Kinsley
Apr 7 2009, 9:13AM
No, We Shouldn't Subsidize The News
Conor, You have a point. I had a paragraph about externalities in my Post column that I cut for
space. The argument would have run something like this: it's good for
you if I read the New York Times, and good for me if you read it, and
without a subsidy the total amount of Times reading will be
sub-optimal. I think that's a fairly easy argument to make. Maybe it's
even true.
Trouble is, I don't think it's a legitimate purpose of government to try to affect what you read. Preventing you from reading something (censorship) is obviously worse than causing you to read something (via subsidy), but the latter is still troublesome. In fact, it may even be unconstitutional. Who decides what communication/speech gets subsidized? If the Times gets a subsidy, does the Daily Worker? It smacks of an "establishment" of speech analogous to the establishment of religion.
Trouble is, I don't think it's a legitimate purpose of government to try to affect what you read. Preventing you from reading something (censorship) is obviously worse than causing you to read something (via subsidy), but the latter is still troublesome. In fact, it may even be unconstitutional. Who decides what communication/speech gets subsidized? If the Times gets a subsidy, does the Daily Worker? It smacks of an "establishment" of speech analogous to the establishment of religion.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.