Furchtgott-Roth: Government Support Of Media Unwise

In a new paper being published by The Media Institute and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, former Federal Communications Commission member Harold Furchtgott-Roth says it has become "alarmingly chic" to talk of government funding of the media beyond what he labels the limited and peripheral funding of public broadcasting.

He points to proposals for public-funded media in two studies from Columbia and the Knight Commission, as well as a Senate hearing and Federal Trade Commission workshops. All of that concern was driven by the tanking newspaper industry and a broadcasting industry that is hurting big time as well. Furchtgott-Roth warns that the all the eulogies for traditional media prompt "desperate searches" for remedies.