Dutch Gov. Wants To Tax Online Media To Fund Print 187
Godefricus writes "Outrage ensued among Dutch techie and media websites, after a government report advised that the dwindling print media industry should be financially supported by the online industry (Google translation; Dutch original here). The idea is to help the old media fund 'innovative initiatives.' The suggested implementation of the plan is by taxing a percentage of each ISP subscription, and give the money to the papers. The report, which was solicited by the Dutch parliament and written by a committee of its members, specifically states that 'news and the gathering of news stories is not free, and the public must be made aware of that.' The report is not conclusive, but from here it's just one step toward a legislative proposal. Both industries are largely privately owned in The Netherlands, and the current government is center-left wing. Who needs an RIAA if you can build one into your government? And hey, why invest in the future if you can invest in the past?"
Why link it to online? (Score:3, Interesting)
Taxing ISPs specifically, seems ass-backwards. If you're going to subsidize an outdated industry (which, hey, is done all over the place) why not fund it out of tax revenue generally, rather than putting a brake specifically on the internet? How about a new tax on cigarettes? :-)
Dutch Govt to tax cars to feed horses too? (Score:4, Interesting)
What other newer technologies support older ones I have to wonder? I won't say that print media is "out" because I think it is still a very important thing to maintain. After all, once a newspaper commits to print, it can't effectively be changed. It was said and published, for better or for worse, whatever it was it will always be. With digital, there is a risk that few people take into account -- archives and editing. Anything stored digitally can be altered, often without a trace. History of events can be changed to suit whatever interests are pushing their agenda. The best you can do with print is burn it and hope that no one questions why it's missing.
But to tax one medium to support another? There is something wrong with that.
Re:Dutch Govt to tax cars to feed horses too? (Score:3, Interesting)
Summer School Homework (Score:3, Interesting)
Excerpt from a work in progress assignment for my summer university course:
Early conjecture on the future of Newspapers and print media foretold of a future of embraced digital publications. Early literature on this movement includes Digitizing the News (Boczkowski, 2005) which begins by tracing early consumer non-print publishing initiatives to the rise of the internet in the mid 1990s. The books examination shifts to reviews of various online content provided by newspapers in the second half of the 1990s, which varies from direct reproduction of printed newspapers to interactive web based content that complimented the printed news. The book then progresses into examining three specific accounts of newspaper adaptation of the internet. The first example is a Technology section of the New York Times which started as an experiment to test new grounds for online media. The second example is the Virtual Voyager project of the HoustonCronicles.com (Boczkowski, 2005) of which reporters pioneered the evolution of multimedia journalism. The third example provided is the Community connection initiative of New Jersey Online (Boczkowski, 2005) which chronicles the birth of user generated content. This literature came out at around the same time as The Vanishing News Paper by Philip Meyer, which makes various assumptions of the state of Newspapers in the mid 2000â(TM)s and the way they are headed. The book begins with reprisal of early work Meyer did on newspapers being âoein the influence businessâ (Meyer, 2005) rather then the news and information business. His 2nd chapter focuses on the business model of âoeHow Newspapers Make Moneyâ (Meyer, 2005) which focuses on how newspapers are âoevictims of easy money.â (Meyer, 2005). In the 11th chapter, after outlining issues surrounding current models Meyer suggests that the death of Newspapers is near. In this chapter he essentially digs the grave for newspapers and predicts the death of newspapers if action is not taken. In Meyers final chapter he says âoeThe time has come to think about the things that we on the ground can do while traditional news media struggle for survival.â (Meyer, 2005) Giving various solutions to the current track that printed newspapers are on.
These two books show early attitudes that are rather contrasting. While Boczkowski is conscious of the evolution of newspapers and migration to digital media he is still optimistic. His book is more of a glorification of progress rather than a cautionary tale. Meyerâ(TM)s on the other hand is very aware of the inevitability of newspapers if they do not undergo drastic change. These books thus give a capsule for attitudes in the mid 2000â(TM)s with regards to newspapers. One attitude was optimistic and the other a prerequisite of upcoming doom. Which book was more accurate? Only time would tell.
The Contemporary Complexion
At this point it is very clear as to who was right and who was wrong with regards to previously reviewed literature. The sense of urgency illustrated by Madigan and Meyer could have never had so much relevance. With the demise of the economy we see an acceleration of the death of newspaper that nobody predicted. Currently we see some Journals contradicting previous assumptions. Such is the case with The Rebirth of News (Peters, 2009) written in the Spring of 2009 this article in the Economist completely changes its tone from the previously reviewed article. In 2006 the Economist said âoeA cause for concern, but not for panicâ (Martin, 2006) but only 2.5 years later we see mass panic. The latest article stating that âoeMost industries are suffering at present, but few are doing as badly as the news business.â (Peters, 2009) This revelation comes at a time when newspapers are dropping at almost a daily rate. The article goes on the suggest reasons for the demise, including loss of ad revenue and readership. The article however informative still does not address the problems outli
Re:Bad idea. (Score:4, Interesting)
When we started looking for cost cutting measures, we discovered we'd been paying 250,000 a year for phones at a distribution center we'd closed 5 years prior. Nobody'd noticed, because that was pocket change. That's a whole buncha reporters they could have been paying, and that sort of waste was endemic just a few decades ago.
And forced? I don't think so. They ignored the internet, and tried to charge regular subscription prices for online content, and took it in the ass. Then they went too far the other way. They're still lunging around without a real direction, outsourcing ads cutting their own throats by putting up projects that take months to produce, online before the print product is even on the stands.
They try to sell these "online editions" which are basically pdf versions of the paper, and much less useful than the website itself. What a joke.
Classifieds? Classifieds are gone. The revenue is down to 10% of what it used to be, and it's never coming back. Free online classifieds are superior to 15 columns of unsearchable text so small you need a fricking magnifying glass.
No one gives a damn if the crappy newspaper comics page is going to go out of business. No one cares if the extremely scanty gig guide or the cooking/gardening crap that's all available online is gone. Editorial content, somewhat, but that's on the fringe of the regular news content.
Frankly, you sound like you're about 60, and more power to you, you're our core demographic. But trust me when I tell you, that we can't survive if we can't get some subscribers under 30, and they're rare as rare.
Re:Slashdot is, as usual, behind the times (Score:3, Interesting)
that's because it's spelled "angstschreeuw"
and "slechtstschrijvend", but the "h"seems to have dropped out of both words in his post.
koeienuier?
Jazzzanger or jazzzangeres, maar jazzzinger? it just doen't klink right;).
Re:Bad idea. (Score:3, Interesting)
"This whole "the print media industry needs government help!" crap is making me nuts."
Well I would tend to agree subsidizing the mostly corporatized newspaper empires is a little nuts.
On the other hand I would REALLY like for someone to figure out a way for journalism to be a viable career, and to insure there are substantial numbers of professional investigative journalists digging up stories in the world precisely because it make people sweat who don't wan those stories dug up. They should absolutely all stopping killing trees to print their news, put it all online, and make sure there is a good way to make it available to commuters, but they also need to get paid and right putting it on line for free mostly means they don't make anything because Google is the only one making money on online ads it seems.
I love online news sites, I appreciate what they do, but I like everyone else am too cheap to pay them if I can get their stuff for free. If I can't get their stuff for free I wont go to their site. Google in particular is the one making huge amount of money exploiting all their news gathering and should be figuring out a way to share some of their wealth to keep deserving professional journalists employed, and ideally lettting all the hacks and newspaper execs starve.
It is true there have been massive failures on the part of professional journalists, like Judith Miller and her propaganda campaign for the Bush administration on WMD's used to perpetrate the war in Iraq. Oh hell.... professional journalists failed en masse during the first six years of the Bush regime. But I blame that mostly on 9/11 and an American public that got seduced in to picking flag waving over truth and the press pandered to what the people wanted. Same thing happened after Pearl Harbor and "Remeber the Maine" in 1898.
Its also true the current corporate empires that own most media outlets and employ most professional journalist are scum, like most greedy executives, and are causing many of the problems as you suggest.
But.... I also don't want to see a world where what passes for journalism degenerates in to a bunch of bloggers sitting around regurgitating the crap they found surfing the web, mixed with a heavy dose of opinion and rumor.......... kind of like I'm doing here. I would actually like to see a restoration of investigative journalists who go out and actually dig up the truth, make people uncomfortable who deserve to be uncomfortable, and put it on the web instead of on dead tress.
They should get paid for it, and if they are good at it get paid well.
Re:Bad idea. (Score:3, Interesting)
Blogs are not the answer. Everyone says, "They'll all go start blogs!" and it makes me want to shake them until the stupid stops.
How many blogs actually make money? Now take all the ones that only do shock and schlock. Yea. I can't think of any either.
Journalism is a professional career. They go to school to learn to do all this crap, and then they go out and practically apply that knowledge. Some of it they do because they love it, but in the end, they're looking for a paycheck and health insurance.
Worse, in-depth stuff can take weeks and months (and, very occasionally years) to research. Who pays their salary during that time? How do their kids eat?
When they do break the next huge amazing story after 6 months of digging through public records on their own dime, how do they get compensated for their time? You going to buy a t-shirt?
Real journalism takes money. This wasn't traditionally a problem, because people were generally willing to fork a modest fee for reliable information. But now the internets have come and saved everyone from the burden of being able to make a living by generating information.
In my experience, journalists are a bit like lawyers. They all want to do the right thing when they're getting started, want to fight for truth, and expose corruption. But eventually, they get beaten down by people who think they're always lying, always dishonest...People who give a quote, and then sue because they end up looking bad.
And after enough of that, they say, "Fuck this low paying shit, I'm going to put this knowledge and experience to work for money." And then they go work for a politician, or a corporation, or a lobbying firm.
So don't worry about the journalists. They'll get paid.