Re: Who to punish...
Remember the News of the World? Shut down following some particularly egregious scandal in July 2011.
In February 2012, the Sun on Sunday started publishing. Published in the same market, by the same publisher, written by the same journalists and aimed at the same readership.
That's how effective "shutting a newspaper down" is in our world.
Apart from that: your "independent committee" would be besieged by post-truth trolls (including, and I'm deadly serious about this, several professionals paid by the Kremlin) questioning their rulings, their competence, and most of all their integrity. You don't have to prove anydamnthing against anyone nowadays - just make the charge often enough and loud enough, and that's it. We've seen it time and again in recent years, and nowadays the politicians don't even try to stand up to it.
And then there's the whole "what is a newspaper?" question. Clearly The Daily Telegraph is, but what about The Register? What about my blog? Or Facebook?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
