[loceng]

It's completely the wrong approach. If they want to subsidize news, do what Andrew Yang proposed as on of his core policies - a "Journalism Dollars" - where every citizen gets $100/year to allocate to their favourite journalist. The problem really seems to be either corruption that's causing then a lack of caring, or simply not enough politicians who have foundational thinking to understand exponentials and trickle up effects, cascading consequences; is it the population is undereducated and if they understood it and that it is money well spent, that leads to safeguarding society and democracy, and only once enough of the population understand that will they vote in politicians who will implement it?

[zodiakzz]

BREAKING: Alex Jones is now the 3rd richest man in the world, thanks to the genius of president Andrew Yang.

[loceng]

Exaggeration is usually the result of poorly thought through consequences. Yes, just like the internet accelerated the reach of everyone, fuelling journalism undoubtedly will accelerate discourse. And yes, if the current state of the union is someone like Alex Jones raising $100,000,000 annually - meaning 1,000,000 people contribute to him - then arguably there will be others who receive the same amount or more who are able to fluently and accurately counter whatever false narratives he pushes forward; not everything he says is "crazy" either by the way. I think however even if say 80 million people easily buy into propaganda, who don't care about the integrity or if there's truth behind those narratives, that leaves 200 million+ people who will be supporting more rational, reasonable people - closer to the fully reasonable end of the spectrum.

Perhaps there likewise need to be rules where say 70% of that $100 has to go to a local person, that person who perhaps then in part distills national news, as well as investigating/sharing about local happenings - so then that $100 million from 1 million people Alex Jones theoretically gets in your example, ends up being reduced to $30 million. And really, unless he spends those resources well, how much more reach can he really get? Platforms for advertising will still have the ability to decide who can reach the eyeballs of their users, etc - so there are further mechanisms to limit/suppress the reach of the more irrational.