The NUJ is always banging on about how the Government should not subsidise the "greedy bosses" and shareholders of the big regional newspaper publishers whose business model the union says has failed.
But, the Dutch government has come up with a way to help fund newspaper journalism without giving a direct subsidy to publishers. Instead it is funding 60 juinor journalists who can't get jobs or are being made redundant in the current financial climate.
MediaGuardian says: "The Dutch government is planning to spend €4m (£3.6m) to pay the salaries of 60 young journalists to work on otherwise commercially funded regional and national newspapers across the Netherlands. The initial bursary is expected to fund junior positions for two years."
It seems sensible to fund skilled trainee journalists who can't get jobs. But when I mentioned the idea to some regional journalists, the response was quite cynical. "If the newspapers can get subsidised journalists for free they will just sack more staff," claimed one.
Surely, there could be safeguards against that happening?
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