Competitive Journalism II
This is a continuation of the previous post.
What is the optimal amount of resources devoted to news in a society? Do we expect a free market to naturally achieve this level? This is impossible to answer. We'd need to know the value to society of investigative reporting on the government. And what is the value of that reporting? What was the benefit to the US of Watergate? Once we figure out the value of this reporting we'd need to know the marginal contribution of resources to this reporting. For example if spending on investigative reporting rose 15% how many more stories would be reported? Of course this value is dependent on how corrupt the government is.
One model could look like this: The first several units of investigative reporting are immensely valuable to society. Large indescretions by the government and corporations are discovered first. The assumption is that the most costly corruption is reported first. After some level each additional unit of investigative reporting has greater difficult finding a story and the stories they do find are of less benefit to society because they are uncovering less costly corruption. So we have diminishing marginal benefits to investigative reporting.
Some people might argue the marginal costs of investigative reporting include damage to society for uncovering corruption. Or they might say the marginal benefits are less because uncovering corruption doesn't necessarilty lead to better government.
This model could be augmented with party affiliation. For example: Some members of society get a benefit when the party they oppose is exposed on some charge regurdless if society at large benefits. Members of the other party experience some costs regardless if the corruption was actually damaging to society.
Under this model it is likely that each side would devote resources to exposing the other side and perhaps resources to defending their own side from being exposed.
Now that we have models...is there reason to expect our society achieves a sub-optimal level of investigative reporting? Now the question is can any of this be measured and studied?
On that note, here is some investigative reporting. What is the value to society of this reporting? Is there damage to society from this article? Who is benefiting? Who is bearing the costs? Might one side feel the press is biased if they support these activities and get caught?
What is the optimal amount of resources devoted to news in a society? Do we expect a free market to naturally achieve this level? This is impossible to answer. We'd need to know the value to society of investigative reporting on the government. And what is the value of that reporting? What was the benefit to the US of Watergate? Once we figure out the value of this reporting we'd need to know the marginal contribution of resources to this reporting. For example if spending on investigative reporting rose 15% how many more stories would be reported? Of course this value is dependent on how corrupt the government is.
One model could look like this: The first several units of investigative reporting are immensely valuable to society. Large indescretions by the government and corporations are discovered first. The assumption is that the most costly corruption is reported first. After some level each additional unit of investigative reporting has greater difficult finding a story and the stories they do find are of less benefit to society because they are uncovering less costly corruption. So we have diminishing marginal benefits to investigative reporting.
Some people might argue the marginal costs of investigative reporting include damage to society for uncovering corruption. Or they might say the marginal benefits are less because uncovering corruption doesn't necessarilty lead to better government.
This model could be augmented with party affiliation. For example: Some members of society get a benefit when the party they oppose is exposed on some charge regurdless if society at large benefits. Members of the other party experience some costs regardless if the corruption was actually damaging to society.
Under this model it is likely that each side would devote resources to exposing the other side and perhaps resources to defending their own side from being exposed.
Now that we have models...is there reason to expect our society achieves a sub-optimal level of investigative reporting? Now the question is can any of this be measured and studied?
On that note, here is some investigative reporting. What is the value to society of this reporting? Is there damage to society from this article? Who is benefiting? Who is bearing the costs? Might one side feel the press is biased if they support these activities and get caught?
posted by Tim at 9:23 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home