Could Gavin Newsom Subsidize the Press That President Trump Loves To Hate?

With every anti-press social media post and White House press ban, President Trump shows he needs the press as much he professes to hate it. Governor Gavin Newsom is pondering legislation that could disclose, as soon as Wednesday, whether he secretly hates the press even as he basks in the adulatory coverage fueling his plans to run for president in 2028.Sitting on Mr. Newsom’s desk is a bill, passed overwhelmingly by legislative supermajorities, that would slather the California press with a $40 million refundable tax credit of as much as $20,000 a head for every reporter, editor, anchor, and photographer. The bill embraces subsidies for every kind of journalism — for-profit or non-, TV, print, or online — but not the partisan kind run by PACs and 501(c)4s.If Mr. Newsom signs, he won’t be the first blue-state governor to embrace the ideological affinity between Democrats and the world’s ink-stained wretches so ardently denied by journalists, but so obvious to readers and viewers. Democrat-run Illinois, New York, and New Mexico already passed similar plans totalling roughly $100 million this year.The trend, if Mr. Newsom’s signature makes it that, could be the death knell of the last common media home trusted by Republicans and Democrats alike — local TV and newspapers. Last year pollster Gallup delivered grim news for the press. Those with a great deal or fair amount of trust in news media reached a new low in November of 28 percent, after sliding for decades. Pollsters for Pew, though, found a bright spot. Republicans, independents, and Democrats alike trust the local purveyors of the latest happenings far more than national journalists or social media.Wait until the public finds out that its tax dollars are paying for that local news. Already skeptical Republicans will revolt. Free-wheeling independents will wonder why they no longer get to choose what they pay for, wondering why they have to pay again for what their taxes already purchased.Democrats, well, they’ll have to be blind not to see the shadiness of money flowing from their politicians to the newly minted state media that covers them. A journalistic battle-cry — follow the money — will become a source of embarrassment as the two-thirds of the public who aren’t Democrats throw government checks in journalists’ faces after every negative story about Republicans or glowing report on Democrats now paying for the privilege.If Mr. Newsom wants to destroy the press, he’ll sign that bill. Press leaders promise, with enough money, they can once again unleash their investigative reporters to rein in the corruption of the government paying their salary. As if.That’s the funny story. One-party states that so enthusiastically embrace this folly have been the most ill-served by the Fourth Estate. In California, the resentful public knows this well, whether it is a $20 billion high-speed train to nowhere or a $100 billion hurricane of homeless spending that made the problem worse.I wouldn’t want to build a business or drum up newspaper subscriptions with that track record. But with tens of millions in government largesse, our press barons won’t have to, at least, not as much. Just like the welfare state insulates beneficiaries from the consequences of their own actions, coddled journalists won’t have to face the fact that their decisions alienated most of their potential customers. Always and everywhere, welfare feeds, rather than dispels, dysfunction.Meanwhile in red states, there’s no such bailout plan. Journalists will have to reflect and reform, even as they adjust to rapidly changing technology. Blue states will get a press trapped in amber, while red states, if things go right, will get a media disciplined by the market, in better touch with their audience, and independent of the government it covers.Mr. Trump says he hates the fake news media but would never really do anything to curtail the attention he craves. Mr. Newsom is different. He says he respects the press and reveres free-speech values. In the next day or two, though, he may do more damage than Mr. Trump could ever imagine.

Could Gavin Newsom Subsidize the Press That President Trump Loves To Hate?

Could Gavin Newsom Subsidize the Press That President Trump Loves To Hate?

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