Another 3-point plan to save American newspapers

Someone on Twitter posted a link to this "Three-Point Plan to Save U.S. Newspapers," which you're free to read. However, I think my three-point plan is much more practical and realistic.

FIRST: Richard Posner didn't go far enough when he suggested we outlaw linkiing. To really save newspapers, we need to make writing in public about news-related topics illegal without a federal license. And since civil penalties are for wussies, let's take this straight to the criminal docket. Federal licenses will be available to all Americans at absolutely no cost (provided you own and operate a printing press or an FCC-licensed TV station).

SECOND: Since people won't pay for news online and display advertising rates are in the toilet, it's obvious that we'll have to find another way to collect the 20 percent profits that rightfully belong to newspaper publishers by deed of Divine Providence. The best option: A federal online media tax, collected every month via your ISP bill. It will only cost you $10 per month, with the money going into a pool to be shared by federally licensed news media. We get to keep making the kinds of profits only drug kingpins earn right now, and you get to keep reading the high-quality mainstream news stories you know and love.

THIRD: Americans have grown used to getting their news for free, and exposure to the Worldwide Web has educated many of our fellow citizens to the generally shoddy state of print journalism in the era of cutbacks and furloughs. Studies suggest they'll never go back to their old habits. Solution? Since Superman is in fact reporter Clark Kent (buy a clue: they're the same guy, only Kent wears glasses!), we give him an ultimatum: "Either fly around the world so fast that it reverses the rotation of the Earth, taking us back in time to 1955, or you AND Lois Lane are GONE in the next round of layoffs!"

See? Three steps.

Simple.

Comments

[Willbur]

I think steps one and two are the most likely to be tried (and stop giving them ideas!) although step three is really the only one that would be effective.