Reinvesting in Public Infrastructure for Journalism and Democracy

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Exploring the idea of using public subsidies to support journalism and media publications, while avoiding preferential treatment for for-profit institutions. Discussing different funding and allocation models and the importance of community involvement in creating a structural alternative for democracy and journalism.

Paris Marx is joined by Victor Pickard to discuss the continued layoffs in news media, and how they are symptomatic of a deeper, structural crisis in journalism.

Victor Pickard is Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at University of Pennsylvania. He’s also the author of Democracy Without Journalism?: Confronting the Misinformation Society.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation and produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Paris will be speaking in Christchurch on February 4 and Wellington on February 8.
Victor wrote for Niemen Lab about the need to divorce news and capitalism, and argued for public newspapers in the Washington Post.
In the US, two-thirds of newspaper jobs, or 43,000 journalists, have been lost since 2005.
Robert McChesney and John Nichols propose a Local Journalism Initiative.
Police raided a newspaper in Kansas on August 11, 2023, setting off a major scandal that’s now seen the police chief suspended.

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