One of the tragedies of American life, as we’ve had occasion to lament in these pages before, is the slow decline of local journalism. The Internet and social media seem to meet many people’s need to stay connected to their communities, news organizations are widely reviled by a polarized public, and most owners of local newspapers can’t seem to think of any way to make ends meet that doesn’t include firing more reporters.
As if things couldn’t get worse, the government of New Jersey has discovered a way to kill off local journalism for good—by subsidizing it.
Gov. Phil Murphy has just signed a bill that creates something called the Civic Information Consortium. The nonprofit organization, according to reports, will be charged with “strengthening local media” and “focus[ing] on civic engagement and projects that will meet the information needs of under-served New Jersey residents.” This “consortium” will be a “collaboration” between several New Jersey colleges and universities, including Rutgers and the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Experts in journalism (as distinct from actual journalists) often don’t grasp the principle that independent journalism ceases to be independent the moment it takes money from the government it’s supposed to monitor. Of course, the same principle applies equally to many other areas—academic freedom and state-funded higher education, for instance—but those of a liberal or progressive mindset persist in believing the things they dominate are somehow neutral and therefore deserving of government largesse.
We don’t presume to know what will revive local journalism, though we suspect imaginative entrepreneurs will in due time figure out how to make local news coverage profitable again. We’re pretty sure what won’t achieve that end: a lot of academics using public money to “collaborate” with each other.
