Have to be the first to print that story, right or wrong, just to say "We're the first." Got to have that advertising dollar.

It doesn't mandate it. Of course newspapers and tv stations are profit driven. They might not run a negative story one of the major advertisers. There are blogs an other independent journalist.

What is your solution?

Many want it to be without cost to them, or make the presses free from their owners (and presumably subject to what others want).

Don't like the press that is, aim for the press that should be: Start your own. Never easier with the advent of photocopiers and the Internet.

I would think that you need to pay them out of some sort of blind trust system to really ensure integrity.

Or they have to be super wealthy. There is the Silicon Valley goal of making eff you money. At a certain threshold, you are beholden to no one and free to act on your conscience.

A Free Press generally refers to free from interference from the govt.

Here's a free (as in beer) clue: There's nothing unconstitutional about making profit in the press industry.

Now, if your idea is some 'stipend' for journalists to 'unencumber' them, then yeah, you've got a problem. Because that stupid shit would be exactly what the 1st amendment was meant to prevent-- the state interfering with the press.

And if you take away the profit, you take away resources to investigate.

The media might consider certain subjects off limits, but they can spend tens of thousands on a major investigation.

Some guy and his blog might investigate everything, but might only have a budget of a few hundred bucks.

it isn't *free* anymore. And, yes, I am aware of "free" and "free". My context is correct.

a level of protection. It's as if there's a hole in our entire system of government. Particularly since Limbaugh and faux news... there's no way for people who bathe in that gunk to see the truth (as we know it to be), so they don't vote on the basis of what's best for us -or even themselves.

What's that website someone posted about earlier this week that's getting off the ground to be a bipartisan source of news/fact checking?...

again once it gets up and running.

That is why they prop up hate radio and provide the money to the print media in exchange for them normalizing their lies.