Obama’s FTC Plan to Reinvent America’s News Media

Los Angeles Times:  “a year ago the new Democrat administration of Barack Obama launched a major internal study intended to design a major government rescue plan for the nation’s financially-troubled information media, primarily newspapers.”

“Would you believe: major changes to the copyright law, including government licensing provisions; government pilot programs to investigate potential new media business models, antitrust changes to allow media companies to unite on imposing online pay walls, establish a journalism division of AmeriCorps with government underwriting the training of young journalists, tax incentives per news employee, increased funding of public broadcasting, a 5% tax on consumer electronics and/or assessments on users of public airwaves.”

See “Will journalists wake up in time to save journalism from Obama’s FTC?”  “FTC protects journalism’s past,” “How not to save news – Bad gov’t ideas for journalism” and “FTC floats Drudge tax.”  See also “Lefties take anti-freedom of speech push to FCC.”  The author says Common Cause, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies  and the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute “seek repeal of the First Amendment’s guarantee of your freedom of speech.”

For a good summary of the FTC report go to “FTC Floats Tax-and-Subsidy Plan for Journalism.”

Here is the actual FTC study called the “POTENTIAL POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS TO SUPPORT THE REINVENTION OF JOURNALISM.”