Sarko can surely throw around a bit of French taxpayers’ money to help maintain a free(ish) press in France if he wants.

Its not as if he’ll be significantly increasing competition with any other countries’ newspapers.

Whether it’ll work of course is another matter.

And honestly I don’t know why so many people seem so intent on hastening the demise of newspapers. They’re the bedrock of the media, people. You take away the print version of the NY Times, and you think the online version will employ as many reporters and editors and maintain the level of in-depth reportage? It won’t. It can’t. Financially, there’s no way to do so.

And I love blogs, I read many of them every day. They’re informative and amazing resources. But they are not the same as a newspaper and, in fact, many of them get their stories and leads from newspaper articles (including this one).

You put newspapers in the hands of 18 year olds, you give them a) something to actually read offline (ah, the novelty), b)increased literacy, C)a deeper window into current events, and d) a more educated peer group (and populace of new voters).

You put newspapers in the hands of all 18 year olds, and you give the papers themselves a) higher distribution numbers, which means their ads are seen by more eyes (and younger eyes), which means they can likely sell more ads and more easily become self-sustaining, and b) a future audience by (hopefully) getting these 18 year olds to see the value of newspapers and develop the habit of wanting to read them.

How is this a “bad idea” exactly?

Oh wait, I forgot–educated voters and an empowered media are the last thing government wants. Yeah, I suppose this doesn’t make any sense to a lot of people….

And Cory, when did you become so cynical about print newspapers? You can’t seriously think giving 18 year olds free broadband would achieve anything more productive than free newspapers. They’d Facebook (tetelivre?), look at porn, and play games. With a newspaper, at worst, they do the crossword and read the comics. Or they don’t read it at all and someone else in the house does.

Frankly, I wish this were happening in the US, and I’m guessing there are thousands of English 101 professors who’d agree.

http://www.south20th.com/index.php?date=2008-03-02

And I have to FIGHT to get a NYT in the morning and the stands are dry at the end of every day. Giving out papers for free does work, clearly.

Oh, I’m at University of North Texas, by the way.

This has the potential to help keep young voters informed — and well informed voters are the bedrock of a healthy democracy. In a country where Fox News has a large hand in shaping political discourse… I’d think we should be looking to do the same.

Millions of American voters are woefully ignorant and uninformed. Easing access to information is the solution.

The bad:

You ultimately serve those who pay you. If the government is paying the bill, it’s going to be awfully hard to publish criticism of said government.

If the government gets to determine which paper people receive via this program, or they make available a “menu” of approved papers, obviously all papers on that list are going to have a be in an awkward position. Do you publish the truth, and risk being removed from the “approved papers” list, losing millions of dollars in revenue?

The only way to guarantee true freedom of the press would be to allow each recipient to elect to receive *any* paper of their choice, regardless of government approval.

Otherwise all you have on your hands is a propaganda machine.

And compare it to other bailout packages for different industries. This manages to send the newspapers some money almost as a side effect of something that would have been a decent idea anyway – as government support goes, that’s unusually elegant.

The Sun, the Mail, the Times, and the Telegraph all have their proprietor’s right of centre agendas. If you want to know why what used to be the Labour party loudly and frequently announces lunatic policies to do with civil liberties, surveillance etc. that’s why.

Why the French Press is so called when no Frenchman I’ve ever met would allow metal to go anywhere near his very good, but very milky and weak, coffee, who knows?

It will be a decent, literate paper that’s being bought for them, yes? If it’s the French version of the Sun then the youth of France are in unspeakable lingual peril.

Here, the newspaper press problem is that what info is available on the net, is frequently better and less unbiased than on paper form. Mr Sarkosy is known phoning to journalist and threatening then when i doesn’t like what they write. In France, some recent laws are restricting journalist freedom of speech, anonymity of sources, rights to criticize rich and powerfull people. All this resulting in auto censorship.

I doubt the rare “free” newspapers will benefit from this idea. Most probable thing, is it will be a disguised form of money transfert from taxpayers to Sarko’s friends.

what subscriptions would be given for free NYTimes, WP and Newsweek, liberation,, le figaro? what about the others? or you choose just by how many copies they sold in the last poll? and if a paper gets a goverment subsidy will it be eager to investigate the goverment’s deeds? would it bite the hand that feeds it? should i believe the various “independent” commities that would inevitably arise to guarantee that the press is still independent? and if i started a paper just for selling goverment subsidied subscriptions? maybe kissing sarkozy’s ass would get me a better contract?

the press is called the 4th power for a reason. if it’s paid for by the goverment it’s just a propagandistic leaflet that has no credibility whatsoever.

i understand the love for the paper medium (and i share it) but if this is the only way to keep journalism alive the press is already dead and buried. if this were about saving and installing a reading culture they should distribute BOOKS. books teach you to love reading newspapers just feed the news. if you don’t learn to read all the papers in the world will not create a reading culture

then again, that’s a dangerous breach of seperation of powers…

“Drudge is king”, said one of the news media lords. Really. So we just make news up now.

Without the great news organizations that the world has depended on for the last sixty years, we have the DC press corps and Chris Matthews telling us what we need to know. And we’ve seen what we get from that setup.

This is the civilization that is poised to save or destroy the world that has existed these past ten thousand years. And it doesn’t read a newspaper.

Mankind’s cause of death: teh stupid.

it’s breaching the separation of powers, since i don’t see how you can guarantee freedom of press in a state paid newspaper

it’s illegal under european law since it is a blatant attempt to save private enterprises with taxpayer money

it’s stupid because if the very people that grew up with newspapers deem them worthless i don’t see how new generations will find them useful

it will be absurdly expensive and will take funds from more useful projects

i believe that newspapers hold an important role in information and that internet is not a panacea for everything but this proposal is just dumb.

unfortunately the french seem to have substituted a theocracy for a stateocracy where the goverment is responsible for everything in your life even your taste in information.

I started reading the newspapers as a small kid because it was on the breakfast table every morning. I’m not ready to kick the printed press to the curb. Unfortunately, I am not as politically savvy as others to comment about Sarkosy’s agenda. However, if the worse I had to complain about my government was giving out free papers, I’d be writing a lot less angry letters to a lot less useless departments.

What does high-speed internet have to do with coffee?

One could give them a bridle and saddle to encourage the habit of dressage.

Or one could give them “tack” (which means the bridle, saddle and any other accessories the horse wears).

I think “tackle” is just for fishing and football.

One of Sarkozy’s solutions to help the industry is a pilot program that will give teenagers celebrating their 18th birthday a free, yearlong subscription to any general news daily of their choice. The publisher is to give the newspapers away, while the state pays for the deliveries.

So providing the article is true then I can’t see how it would violate any free press laws and yes the kids get the choice in what paper they receive.