Perhaps, by separating the two out, we'll have a clearer differentiation of what is news and what is noise and entertainment.
Naturally, those on the right will call this socialized journalism or socialist news. These are the same people though who fight to allow corporations to be treated as people, the same people who have enabled the ending of net equality. These are the ones who block efforts to increase transparency in government, because this idea is all about transparency.
Frankly, I'd like to see even more money invested. Why not fund four times as many -- put 240,000 investigative journalists to work, of all ages. They will scour the nation to find quality stories that make a difference.
The top 10,000 or 20,000 journalists should get bonuses and the least read, least value producing journalists should get demotions or lose their jobs.
Crowdsourcing and related bottom-up approaches will be used to assess who are the best and worst achievers as well as measures of money saved or developed, based on discovering waste, corruption, getting out new ideas, etc. If a reporter digs up a corrupt operation that has been bilking the government of $10 billion a year. That reporter should get a big bonus, maybe $100,000, and be secure in her job for at least a few years. If a reporter is the first to really get wide coverage for a new invention that saves people millions, he or she should get a nice reward.
Hey, this is a new idea. It's not totally fleshed out. But it's a hell of a lot better than dumping hundreds of millions or billions into a dying, archaic industry. There may have been people who wanted to rescue the buggy whip industry. But they were misguided. It was transportation they really cared about.
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