Soccer Dad

Not well endowed

In News you can endow, David Swensen and Michael Schmidt argue that newspapers ought to be run as non-profits with endowments rather than as for-profit corporations. Think of it as the latest in MSM enhancement products.And what would the benefit be?

Aside from providing stability, an endowment would promote journalistic independence. The best-run news organizations insulate reporters from pressures to produce profits or to placate advertisers. But endowed news organizations would be in an ideal situation -- with no pressure from stockholders or advertisers at all.

But what would happen if a Saudi prince donated millions to a newspaper? Wouldn't the paper feel pressure to produce news that wouldn't upset its benefactor? Or worse, what if Merck would endow a paper? Then the paper might feel obligated to question claims made by lawyers about the potential damages a drug would cause. We wouldn't want that would we?

But nowhere do Swensen and Schmidt address the fundamental problem facing newspapers: the lack of trust the public has in them. The decline in circulation is presented as a function of the internet, not of the increased and increasingly obvious partisanship displayed by the media compromising their role as impartial reporters of fact.

I'm sure that the internet is a challenge to newspapers, but endowments will not make them less partial and that is the biggest problem facing newspapers today.