Terry Tracy: You can’t save a free press by putting it on the public payroll

The press is the “chief democratic instrument of freedom,” Alexis de Tocqueville once observed. The United States Constitution goes further: it singles out the press as the only private industry explicitly protected in the First Amendment. That is not ornamental. It reflects a structural judgment — that democratic government depends on a press that remains independent of the state it is tasked with scrutinizing.

That is why the proposal advanced by Jim Friedlich — CEO and executive director of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, which owns the Philadelphia Inquirer — in an April 9 editorial demands far more scrutiny than it has received. 

What is framed as a pragmatic effort to “revive” local journalism is, in substance, an argument for expanding the financial and structural relationship between the press and the state. In essence, the government would collect your taxes and send them to the media outlets that are supposed to be keeping them honest.

That shift is not merely economic. It carries institutional and constitutional consequences.

Friedlich’s argument rests on a familiar but misleading premise: that the decline of legacy newspapers constitutes a collapse of local journalism itself.

It does not.

The old business model — print distribution combined with advertising concentration — has eroded. What has not disappeared is the demand for local reporting or the capacity to produce it. That capacity has migrated to digital platforms, smaller outlets, and alternative models that operate outside the legacy framework.

By collapsing these distinctions, the argument deceitfully transforms institutional disruption into a civic emergency and then, predictably, offers state intervention as the solution.

The central claim — that public funding can strengthen journalism without altering its independence — rests on a fragile assumption.

The concern is not that the government would exercise overt control; it is that these subsidies would align the media’s interest closely with the government’s.

When the local press’s financial stability becomes dependent on the government, incentives shift. News organizations become less inclined to pursue lines of reporting that might jeopardize access, funding streams, or regulatory relationships. This does not require explicit pressure: It is the natural course of institutional behavior under conditions of dependency.

A media organization dependent on the government will never hold the government to account.

The more the press is integrated into systems of public support, the less clearly it stands apart from the state it is meant to monitor. And that is not an abstract concern. Questions about editorial filtering and selective coverage in legacy media have already eroded public trust. Expanding financial dependence on government risks compounding that problem, not solving it.

The dysfunction of the current system is most visible in the ongoing debate in Harrisburg over public notice reform and how the state directs its considerable spending on legally required notices.

Friedlich, his allies at the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, and their lobbyists are backing legislation — HB 1291 — that would require taxpayers to fund public notices exclusively through designated print publications, often at inflated rates compared to digital alternatives. Call it what it is: a mandated transfer of public money to legacy media — a “newspaper tax.”

And then comes the second charge: those same publications frequently place these publicly funded notices behind subscription paywalls.

So, the public pays to publish the information — and then pays again to see it.

This is more than a bad deal: it defeats the entire purpose of public notice.

Public notice laws exist to ensure meaningful notice of government action. Notice that is effectively hidden behind a paywall is not meaningful. It is performative.

The right to petition the government presupposes that citizens can identify when and how to act. If that information is gated — financially or structurally — the right is diminished in practice.

The result is a system that serves itself. The public pays for legally required information. Access to that information is restricted. The ability to respond to government action is impaired. And, of course, the answer is more government. 

Implicit in Friedlich’s argument is the idea that market forces have failed journalism.

That claim is only half-true.

Yes, markets have disrupted legacy institutions. But they have also exposed inefficiencies, forced adaptation, and enabled new entrants that better reflect how people actually consume information. Digital platforms, subscription models, and niche local outlets are not signs of collapse — they are signs of transition.

Where organizations have adapted, they have survived. Where they have not, they have declined. Digital media is breathing new life into a moribund industry. Public policy intended to shield legacy institutions from creative destruction does not strengthen journalism. It freezes it in time.

There is a certain audacity to these proposals that are particularly striking.

Public trust in both legacy media and large technology platforms has already been strained by ongoing debates about editorial filtering, content moderation, and perceived censorship. Controversies involving Twitter and Meta Platforms have made clear that control over information flows — whether formal or informal — is a central concern in contemporary public life.

Against that backdrop, expanding the role of government in funding journalism is not a neutral act.

Even without explicit conditions, financial entanglement raises legitimate questions about influence, alignment, and self-censorship. The issue is not simply what the government might do. It is what institutions might choose not to do when their stability depends on government.

In an environment where trust is already fragile, that risk is not theoretical.

Comparative examples help clarify the underlying principle.

In explicitly state-run media systems — such as Pravda in the former Soviet Union or Xinhua News Agency in the People’s Republic of China — the alignment between media institutions and the state is overt and formalized. 

The proposals in Pennsylvania are not that. But those examples illustrate an endpoint on a continuum.

Friedlich’s policy proposals will not produce state-run media. But it would lead to the gradual erosion of the independent press through structural alignment. Each step that ties journalism more closely to government funding and protection moves the press further from the role Tocqueville described.

The press is not just another industry in need of a taxpayer funded bailout orchestrated by insiders. It is a mediating institution that derives its legitimacy from its independence.

That is why it is uniquely recognized in the First Amendment.

Proposals that expand the financial and structural relationship between the press and the state should be treated with skepticism, not optimism. Friedlich’s argument does the opposite. It treats dependency as benign, protection as reform, and preservation as progress.

Democracy does not require a press that is stable at any cost.

It requires a press that is free — free enough to fail, adapt, compete, and, above all, to hold power accountable without hesitation.

Call it a revival if you want — but a press that answers to the state is no longer the one democracy depends on.

Terry Tracy is the CEO and Publisher of the Fideri News Network.