Jon McTaggart is chief operating officer at American Public Media. The following are his remarks delivered at the Federal Trade Commission’s “News Media Workshop” held on December 1 and 2, 2009:

In his remarks to open this conference, Chairman Leibowitz emphasized the importance of journalism to a functioning democracy.

Then, for the remainder of the first day, we listened to more than 30 presenters and panelists talk about the “business of news” and the need to better serve consumers.

At American Public Media, we don’t think about it that way.