On Book TV the other day a group of writers were actually discussing the political determination of journalism. They appeared to be intelligent and well educated yet they were, one speaker after the other, suggesting that government should somehow fund their Journalistic efforts.

My first thought was, there must be some communist country out in the world where they can go and write their little hearts out.  Of course the funding of the arts with government supporting PBS does not help my cause in ridiculing such ignorant ideas.  There are a lot of areas where we could actually cut government spending that are not necessities, but as the old saying goes, everybody wants to cut the budget, as long as it’s somebody else’s.   

Here we are suffering from over taxation and regulation because government has grown enormous and there are a group of well educated______________, you fill in the blank, suggesting since everyone else seems to be getting government contracts, why shouldn’t we?  They obviously weren’t paying attention to the fight that just happened in Congress over the Debt Ceiling and budget cuts. Perhaps if they started writing about how fascism is destroying our country, instead of trying to feed off the government treasury like so many are already doing, somebody might actually want to read and therefore pay for some of the material they write. That is how free enterprise is supposed to work. It’s not supposed to be a bunch of people seeing how they can get the politicians to increase taxation so they are guaranteed payment for their journalistic efforts.  That’s the problem with this country to many people feeding of the public treasury. If you can’t sell your works than perhaps you’re not that good at your desired trade and need to look for something else to do for money.   

The internet has given everyone the opportunity to express their ideas and write about everything under the sun.  Journalism once controlled by major publishing houses and corporate controlled newspapers is wide open and the consumer will choose who they want to read and how much they are willing to pay for those that give then the information and entertainment they want.  It’s a new world and communications has opened up and gives everyone equal footing and access.  Let the best journalists win and that is free enterprise.  

Journalism already has too much government controls through both direct government and campaign finance advertizing and it has surely been a manipulating factor over both content and representative government. The constant ridicule and tactics of ostracism by the opponents of Ron Paul is an example.  Continuous chanting “He Can’t Win” even by such twerps as Donald Trump, who got shot down as a legitimate candidate so fast by the American public he didn’t even make it to the straw polling, has actually been repeated by those who I thought were intelligent people. 

We still have away to go, as how many people today still think that if the mass media is not reporting it, therefore it must not be true.  For those of you who read everything they can get their eyes on, we know that this is just not true. We know how manipulated the mass media and their phony journalist and reporters are as they continue to mislead and misinform us on a number of issues. It’s however changing as “choice” is opening up the game. We don’t have to listen to their crap anymore and apparently it is causing them some discomfort as people are starting to turn them off and not buy their crappy periodicals and newspapers.