Frederica Freyberg:
Finally tonight we return to politics. More specifically, the reporting of politics. The coauthor of a new book says that the future of our democracy depends on the future of the press. The name of the book is The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again. It was coauthored by Robert McChesney and Madison Capital Times associate editor John Nichols. He stopped by to talk about the book earlier. Here is our conversation.

Frederica Freyberg:
Thank you for being here. So, the “Death and Life of American Journalism.” One word: depressing?

John Nichols:
You have to look at the subtitle. The subtitle is “The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again.” It is depressing if you read, frankly, the first chapter where we outline the rapid decline in journalism employment and in coverage. We shouldn't just whine about whether you and I have a job. We should be worried about what we contributed to society. We outline a lot of what's given away. Much less capital coverage in the state. Much less Washington coverage. Dramatically less international coverage. It's really sad. But what we argue and the reason we wrote the book is there are ways to get out of this mess.

Frederica Freyberg:
Let's go there next. But backing up, newspapers are folding. This is one marker of this. Commercial TV stations are contracting. But this is, what they have been covering hasn't changed that much because for years they have been doing what you referred to as “news you can use” and health minutes. And how does that compare and where does the state of journalism leave viewers and readers looking for this open probing watchdog kind of coverage of policy politics in elections?

John Nichols:
The founders of this republic intended for us to have a journalism and a media that allowed us to be citizens and “small d” democrats. We had freedom of the press so the people could have information that would allow them to govern themselves, to replace the rule of kings and viscounts and monarch and give it to the people. For a lot of the history of the republic there was that intent, or at least the attempt of it, not always perfect. Today we have a media that by and large treats us as commercial and entertainment consumers. There is a huge, huge difference between being a citizen and being a consumer.

Frederica Freyberg:
Can we get this on the web?

John Nichols:
If you have got the kind of time that you or I have, where we may get up in the morning and spend as I do often a couple hours going, tracking things around the world. I'm paid to do this. It's a wonderful gig. But there are some people who have other jobs. They get up in the morning. They have to get the kids off to school. Then they have to rush to one of their two or three jobs. They come home tired. They don't necessarily have the time to search everything in the world. The whole point of journalism at its best was always that we would have people who we would send out to spend their day trying to get at the truth and to bring it to us in an accessible form.

Frederica Freyberg:
You have a solution to this. And that I like. Because you say that the solution lies in public media. In fact you say you would like to fund it through something called the Citizens News Voucher where the feds will give us all money, then we could fund the news operations that we most like.

John Nichols:
It's a democratic response. I will correct a little bit. I don't think the feds will actually send you cash. My suspicion would be that you would get, at the start of the year, you would have a voucher or you would have something you attach to your tax form. But let's say we said to you, ‘you have $200 you can spend on media. You can donate it to a neighborhood Web site that's covering the schools. You can donate it to a national publication that's doing a great job covering agricultural policy. You can put it you where want. You can divide it up.’ But at end of the day you guide it because we don't ever want the federal government to be bailing out newspapers or to be guiding what is good news or bad news.

Frederica Freyberg:
The critics would say the only pure and free media is based on a commercial business model and that government-subsidized media would render it an arm of the government.

John Nichols:
It's a fascinating notion, and I think we should experiment with it in the United States. We have never had it. In the United States our broadcast media, which is the dominant information source, our broadcast media all operates on the people's airwaves owned by the public with contracts or licenses to commercial broadcasters who use that space for free. They never give anything back to the public. But they are regulated by the government, they have to follow rules. So this notion that we have somehow had this glory day where, you know, it's kind of wild characters rode out into the West and started television stations, it never happened. At the founding of the republic when Jefferson, Madison, Adams, all those guys are writing freedom of the press protections, they created massive postal subsidies and direct subsidies for public media, for a low-scale commercial media because they did not believe that the market in that period would give the people sufficient information to practice citizenship. The first 60 to 70 years in this republic we had a highly subsidized media. That's where we got the abolitionist press. That’s where we got so much of the media that challenged this country to be better.

Frederica Freyberg:
One last question having to do with the death of American journalism, how long do I have?

John Nichols:
I think you have got a couple weeks at least. We believe public broadcasting is one of the real roads out here. Our suspicion is that public broadcasting is going to go from strength to strength. We are going to need it. I hope you’re going to be around for a long time.

Frederica Freyberg:
John Nichols, thanks very much.

John Nichols:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
I spoke with author John Nichols earlier.