The FTC Confuses Newspapers With Journalism as it Seeks New Media Tax

[Commentary] The Federal Trade Commission "discussion draft paper" on the future of journalism suggests that online advances must be hobbled, taxed and maybe even reversed -- because they hurt the newspaper industry.

Dead-tree media's salvation, it seems, lies in nobbling social media and making search engines as user-unfriendly as possible. Oh, and newspapers will need one more thing: government subsidies. That's why we need the tax hikes -- especially on Internet and 3G phone users. Turns out, the way we bought our car is killing newspapers. As James Fallows observes in this month's Atlantic, newspapers never made money on hard news. The FTC is making several tragic mistakes. The first is to confuse the delivery method with the goods delivered. To use the oft-repeated analogy, they assume the horse and buggy is essential to providing transportation.