New Jersey Civic Information Consortium’s Immoral Taxpayer Grab

In a 3/3/21 op-ed, Interested in local N.J news? Here’s a way one group is investing in its future, New Jersey Star-Ledger Guest Columnist Christopher Daggett writes that the changing market for news media has left some local news outlets in the dust. How to “fix” the market?: Raid the taxpayers:

Despite the good work of New Jersey’s press corps, many communities across the state are being left in the dark. A two-decades long local news crisis has led to rapid media consolidation, thousands of journalist layoffs, and dozens of newsroom closings. Studies have shown when local news suffers, so does civic participation. And in its place, misinformation runs rampant. 

My emphasis. Yet another “crisis”. Two, in fact. Later, Daggett calls this a “crisis in democracy”.

Local news is facing a real structural problem. It’s being weakened. It’s disappearing. We need to start acting like this is the crisis in democracy that it is.

In this Year of the Crisis, the list of crises since Biden’s inauguration continues to burgeon. 

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Every facet of our lives requires access to factual, quality, and responsive news and information. The events of the past year, especially the pandemic and its effects on our communities, have underscored the need for rebuilding and reimagining what local media looks like in our state.

Now is our chance to do just that. The New Jersey Civic Information Consortium [NJCIC], created by the state to strengthen local news coverage and boost civic engagement, is excited to announce its inaugural call for proposals from the public. The Consortium, a nonprofit collaborative between The College of New Jersey, Montclair State University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rowan University and Rutgers University, will provide funding to support local journalism, promising media startups and other efforts to better inform people.

You have to wait until later in the article to find out that this funding includes “innovative public investment,” a euphemism for seizing money by force of taxation, from unwilling citizens. Why unwilling? Because if private citizens were willing to support these media projects with their own dollars, through subscriptions or newsstand purchases, we wouldn’t have a “local news crisis” or a need for a New Jersey Civic Information Consortium.

I don’t care what others do with their own money. If a higher education group wants to pool their own money and dish it out to selected aspiring media entrepreneurs who can’t succeed in the market otherwise, more power to them. Private individuals and groups have always been free to risk their own money to start a news organization, thanks to freedom of the press and the First Amendment. But what right do they have to use the taxing power of the state to get that money? None whatsoever. It is immoral and unjust to do so.

Much of the article is filled with rationalizations for this scheme. 

Without bold action and creative solutions, we’ll see more fake news and political polarization. We won’t be able to find basic information about what’s happening in the places we live, work, and learn. It’ll be harder to know if our water is clean, our air is clear, or our taxpayer dollars are being spent to benefit taxpayers. 

You mean, like “climate crisis” or “clean energy” or “systemic racism”? Why would we trust the tax-funded NJCIC new media project to not engage in fake news of its own? Fake news is all over mainstream media and political discourse. I do my own work sorting out fake from genuine news, and I see no reason why I should more readily trust the NJCIC-funded outlets any more or less than any other outlet. In fact, government-funded “news” is undoubtedly less trustworthy, given the fake news demagoguery regularly spewed by politicians.

No one should ever be forced to fund any media source against their will. All funding should be private and voluntary. The NJCIC project is immoral, if not unconstitutional, if it includes a single taxpayer dollar, including indirectly such as through state universities like Rutgers. If the NJCIC really believes its vision that “access to accurate, useful, and engaging local news and information, allowing them to better participate in civic life and create thriving, healthy communities . . . is the lifeblood of democracy,” it would realize that a fully free press is vital. And a free press means no government involvement in the press, period. A collaboration between the press and the state is the hallmark of dictatorships.

Related Reading:

NJ Government Takes First Step to Becoming ‘the Sole Arbiter of Truth’

Think your enemy is the press? So does every tyrant and corrupt politician

N.J. just became the first state to help revive local news By Susan K. Livio -- NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Keep the press free from the academics and the politicians by Paul Mulshine