Why None Of Us Built It By Ourselves

by Stuart Shapiro

Just finished a great book by Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media.  The book focuses on the choices that the U.S. government made over the past few centuries that led to the development of the media.

From the founding of the republic, the federal government had given the press constitutional guarantees, postal subsidies, and other benefits that enabled newspaper, book and magazine publishing to become economically as well as formally independent of the state and political parties.

In addition to emphasizing the role of government in helping all businesses (especially the media) thrive, Starr also focuses on when government goes too far with censorship and the dangers of concentration of the media in a small number of  parties.  The key, as with all policies, is getting the balance right.  None of us are in it by ourselves.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.