Government funding for journalism: necessary evil or just evil?

As advertising revenue continues to decline, virtually every publisher in North America has had to seek other sources of funding. Some have turned to venture capital, while others are experimenting with nonprofit status, crowdfunding, and even selling shares to readers. Now there’s another option: government funding. The state of New Jersey has agreed to give a nonprofit entity called the Civic Information Consortium $2 million to hand out to publishers. And in Canada, the government created a $600 million fund aimed at supporting journalism through a variety of tax breaks...