jacobjulius

money useful, even though money cause some problems

I'm glad you like Planet Money!

When I read your question about funding for local journalism I literally said "Oh, man" out loud, alone in my room.

I worked at local newspapers (shoutout Bozeman Daily Chronicle and Miami Herald), and I love them, and I don't know what the answer is for funding. Sorry.

Reply

When we cover companies that buy underwriting on NPR, we mention that fact in our stories.

Advertising and reporting are entirely different parts of the company, and advertising never, ever tells the reporting side what to do or not do.

In my experience of working at a number of places (NPR, WSJ, etc.) journalists truly don't care about offending advertisers or making them happy. We just want to get the story right.

Gold!

Gold was at the center of the international financial system from the early part of the 19th century until the 1930s.

In the U.S., gold effectively stopped being money in 1933, when FDR took the country off the gold standard*. One of his advisers said it would mean "the end of Western Civilization." This was a common sentiment. But the adviser was wrong. Going off the gold standard was a great economic move that helped the U.S. start to climb out of the Depression.

I tell this story at greater length in the book, and I love it in part because it shows the way people tend to think that whatever system of money is currently in place is the only "real" way to do money, and everything else is just made up. What FDR understood is that it's all made up, and we can make up something else if we want.

*Technically the U.S. was on a half-baked gold standard until 1971, but it wasn't really the gold standard.

I think for-profit companies can do good journalism. I also think non-profit companies can do bad journalism. What matters is the journalism, not the tax structure of the company.

Alex Blumberg is a great journalist and a wonderful human being and I am very happy for his success.