A group of leading economists including Nobel winner Joseph Stiglitz warned Monday about the "collapse" of the public interest media sector and called on governments to help quality journalism survive, according to reports from Agence France Press published in Barron’s and a story in The Wire.
Stiglitz, a University Professor, and Prat, the Richard Paul Richman Professor of Business, are both at Columbia’s Business School as well as members of the advisory board of the Center for Political Economy.
They are among a group of 11 economists in leading American and European universities who published a joint statement via the "Forum on Information and Democracy", a body formed by the Reporters Without Borders media freedom group and the French state. The reports describe the group’s statement as an urgent plea to recognize and uphold the economic value of public interest media in the age of artificial intelligence.
“Public Interest media play an essential role in guaranteeing this information supply and ensuring its quality. They are like the central banks of the informational economy: providing the confidence in the system that is necessary for it to function.”
