Yesterday we heard from Nicholas Lemann at the Columbia University journalism school, who argued that indirect or direct government funding might be necessary to prop up mainstream news organizations, which are seeing their losses accelerate as more of the audience moves to Web sites, blogs and other new media.

Today, the other side of the argument from Ralph Whitehead Jr., journalism professor at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.

Whitehead says he has no problems with some government funding already in place, including that which comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But he says expanding that support to newspapers and other struggling news organizations would lead to government control of the press.