Collective responsibility for news? Really?

Washington Post legend Len Downie, with journalism scholar Michael Schudson, wrote this:
"American society must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reporting – as society has, at much greater expense, for public education, healthcare, scientific advancement and cultural preservation, through varying combinations of philanthropy, subsidy and government policy."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/oct/19/newspapers-media-journalism-future-local

Seriously? Government policies and subsidies? Why not government subsidies...just take my tax dollars to save the Post. He has some good ideas, including models like our new UT Web initiative, but I don't agree that "journalism, philanthropy, higher education, government and the rest of society" have a responsibility to ensure the future of journalism - at least not in its current form.