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America’s Government-Licensed Journalism Is Dying.

Written by Gary North on June 18, 2013

In 1945, economist F. A. Hayek wrote what turned out to be a classic paper on how decentralized knowledge is made available to the public by means of the free market.

He argued that most knowledge is decentralized, and the free market allows people who own such knowledge to reap profits from this ownership. There is no way that any government committee can assemble accurate comparable knowledge, and then implement this information, with anything like the efficiency of the free market system. This article is reprinted in Chapter 4 of his 1948 book, Individualism and Economic Order. You can read it on the website of the Mises Institute. Click here.

What Hayek wrote about economic information is equally applicable to information in general. Accurate information is held by individuals at the local level. It is highly decentralized. There is no way that any central bureaucracy, or group of bureaucracies, can assemble more than a tiny fraction of this information.

Fast forward to 2013. Scott Pelley, CBS News anchor, said this:

“The country is only as strong as its journalism — that’s the way democracies work. The higher the quality of the information, the better informed the electorate is and the better the government runs. And the American people can always be trusted with the information.”

Mr. Pelley is a representative of broadcast journalism. He therefore is a representative of the federal government.


From 1928 until the present, the federal government has regulated the creation of over-the-air radio stations and television stations. Historians generally date the first commercial radio broadcast in the United States with the 1920 broadcast by Pittsburgh radio station KDKA of the results of the presidential election. The multiplication of radio stations led to overlapping broadcasts, due to the limitations of radio spectrum. The federal government intervened in 1927 by passing the Radio Act, and a regulatory system was set up in 1928. From that time on, the federal government has controlled the number of radio licenses, and it has used politically progressive standards to allocate the increasingly valuable spectrum.


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9 thoughts on “America’s Government-Licensed Journalism Is Dying.

  1. Bob Marshall says:

    Goal 21 of the 45 Communist Goals to Take Control of America read into Congressional Record on January 10, 1963. Gain control of key positions in radio, T.V. and motion pictures. I am afraid the Zionist have already beat them on that one.

  2. If I may also point out that network news has undermined their own credibility in incalculable ways. First, by tainting every story with opinion and bias, second by selective coverage of unimportant and uninteresting "human interest" material, and most critically, by deliberately burying news stories of vital importance that embarrass their masters, they have destroyed their relevance and revealed their agenda. The public will no longer accept anything they have to say as true or reliable information.

  3. grumpy3625 says:

    Have you seen those TV segments where people on the street are interviewed about current news? They don't even know what's going on and that includes college students too! People are now getting their info from the internet and it is mostly pulp. Who cares about what movie star was seen hobnobbing or canoodling with someone else in whatever restaurant? Apparently this is what the young adults are interested in and they don't even know where Syria is located or that anything happened in Benghazi.
    These people are the liberals because the ones who provide intelligent answers are either self proclaimed Libertarians or conservatives. They will walk into a voting booth and vote with a completely empty mind. I don't think you should be allowed to vote until you reach the age of 40. Anyhow, this is all the media has to offer these days: empty headed articles on empty headed reality stars like Kim Kardashian and her talentless husband.

  4. Grumpytoo says:

    Grumpy, aren't the public schools doing a great job? They are doing so well that they always need more money. Let's start teaching these kids as toddlers! We need to start the indoctrination earlier! Let's teach them to be willfully ignorant! Let's teach them to covet what others have earned! Doesn't everyone deserve food stamps and an Obama phone?

  5. Bill Smith says:

    Right on pearl!

  6. Rabelrouser says:

    Your sarcasim is not lost, and holds great truths.

  7. Seymour Kleerly says:

    The TV segments you mention (on Fox News I'm sure) are cherry picked just to keep Conservatives dumbed down. You may get more information but it's ALL anti-Liberal/Obama. That's called propaganda!

  8. john smith says:

    It was really happening until there was DRUDGE…. People who could still read took hold and red DRUDGE. Hios may still be the only real Truthful Report/
    Bless the guy.

  9. 317david says:

    There are no good news medias left in this country, unless it's on your computer from another country that does care it you read the truth about your own country, meaning that Obama is a worthless lying "president" commies muslim, baby killer, anti-Christian and anti-American!!!!!!!