10 Questions About…

It was great to be home –mostly it was 10 days of work. Well work and really good restaurants. But one night Dad and I went to see Bob McChesney (founder of FreePress.net) and John Nichols (Washington correspondent to The Nation.)

They were in town promoting their new book: The Death and Life of American Journalism. They were interesting because of the tremendous amount or research they had clearly done and their perspective. They had a couple of points that I noted. First that the idea that the constitution was intended to be revisited every 20 years or so. That answers a lot of questions.

Second, they promoted uncensored government support of the media. They pointed out that countries that supported the media had more civic engagement and other great things that naturally I’ve forgotten. But they had an idea that each citizen should have $200 in government funding to give to a nonpartisan, nonprofit news source. I love that idea. Someone in the audience was worried that other people would give their money to the wrong resources, like to sports coverage – but they had clearly had that question before. They pointed out that sports coverage is rarely nonprofit. They added that most people would give their money to a news source – even if they never really read the news source. Because most people appreciate that access to information is essential. While the questioner looked skeptical, I think they had a goodpoint.