Monday Note
Frédéric Filloux looks at a study that analyzes public subsidies of various forms of media and concludes that there's no correlation between public spending and print readership. Finland is a big spender, per capita, and print media there has a high penetration: 79 percent of the population. But Germany spends just 11 percent of that and achieves a 72 percent penetration. Moreover, print media in the U.S. have almost twice the penetration of their counterparts in Italy, although the U.S. spends just 16 percent more on a per-capita basis. Filloux says Finland's high readership is due to its editorial product, not subsidies. "There are no Keynesian mechanisms in evidence when it comes to correlating public spending with print media penetration," he writes. Moreover, the study "kills long lasting prejudices such as European media being massively state-funded, or an American public sector unsupportive of the media industry." He goes on to list four guidelines for public subsidies, including "no life-support funding." || Related: FCC media report shows how interest in government subsidies for local journalism fizzled

Federal Communications Commission
FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps criticizes the agency's "The Information Needs of Communities" report released Thursday, saying it isn't the "bold response" needed to address the lack of accountability reporting and diversity in local media. "Instead of calling for stepped-up Commission action, it tinkers around the edges," he writes. His thoughts on the report's recommendations after the jump. (more...)

Reboot: An Open Letter to the FCC About a Media Policy for the Digital Age
Columbia Journalism Review, Nov./Dec. 2010

Poynter’s Rick Edmonds recommends the “excellent (albeit long) piece by Steve Coll in CJR about modernizing FCC media policies.”

In … Read more

It looks like we can add government assistance to the pile of disintegrating business models facing the media.

A new study of historic subsidies and emerging trends tracks various tax breaks, reductions in postal subsidies first enacted in 1792, and … Read more

What’s most interesting and useful about “The Reconstruction of American Journalism” report issued by Len Downie and Michael Schudson Monday is not so much what it chronicles or recommends.

Look instead at what it’s provoking.

My Poynter … Read more