"High-Minded Bullshit Beliefs In The Name Of A Free Press"

Michael Kinsley argues against news subsidies:

I don't think it's a legitimate purpose of government to try to affect what you read. Preventing you from reading something (censorship) is obviously worse than causing you to read something (via subsidy), but the latter is still troublesome. In fact, it may even be unconstitutional. Who decides what communication/speech gets subsidized? If the Times gets a subsidy, does the Daily Worker? It smacks of an "establishment" of speech analogous to the establishment of religion.