I think I just figured out how to solve the problem of news in America.

Prior to TV and radio, newspapers were profit oriented, and often put out actual fake news to sell papers. Then, because radio and TV were on the public airwaves, networks had to provide ad free news.

While not necessarily perfect, from about 1920-1980, radio and especially TV news was perhaps the best news our nation ever had. And then the laws changed.

Now, we face a world where local news is disappearing, and national news is degraded to repeating soundbites.

Why? Because of profit motive and competition from internet giants like @Google, @Facebook, @amazon, and right here on @twitter.

The solution is right there: all of these companies owe their existence to the work of the people, specifically the Internet, invented by our nation.

Which means that these entities ought to subsidize the news, much like radio and TV networks did before, because they are using the public's networks.

Of course, it's a bit more complex than that, given how many "channels" we now have, but every company that benefits from the Internet ought to pay say .1% of their earnings to support ad-free news. By my estimation, the big 4 account for almost $500B in revenue yearly.

.1% of that would be $500M each year, and if any company with online systems with a market cap of over say $100M contributed, that would at least add up to $1B annually, probably more. Not sure how it would divide up, but it would go a long way to getting us better news.

There's more to figure out, but to me at least, it ought to be on the list of what we need to do to repair our nation. Without independent news of integrity, we cannot hope to maintain our democracy. And if things continue as they are, we may end up with no news at all.