Last week, Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled, “Journalism Needs Government Help.” As Bollinger argues, evidence is mounting that there simply is not enough private capital from traditional revenue sources such as advertising, subscriptions and philanthropy to pay for the quality journalism our communities need. Slowly but surely, people are conceding that there is a role for carefully crafted public policy that will foster a new age of innovative, diverse, local and hard-hitting reporting.

Critics paint opinions like Bollinger’s as advocating for another “government hand out” or “giving up on the free market.” Nowhere in Bollinger’s essay, or in reports from the Knight Commission, USC Annenberg School of Journalism, Columbia University, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission, does anyone argue for replacing the commercial media sector with a government-funded monolith.

We need to focus on strengthening our current public media system and reimagining an even more robust non-commercial journalism sector in America. Our nation needs both. Advocating for one is not a dismissal of the other.

Indeed, Bollinger spells this out expertly. “American journalism is not just the product of the free market, but of a hybrid system of private enterprise and public support,” he writes. “We should think about American journalism as a mixed system, where the mission is to get the balance right.”

This is not about asking the government for a hand out or giving up on the marketplace; it is acknowledging that American media has always had both commercial and non-commercial media. For too long, we have neglected the role of the latter and put all our emphasis on the former. As our commercial media sector struggles with the economic realities of the day, and many “news” outlets give up on hard-hitting journalism, public media and nonprofits are rising to fill in the void. There is room for both. Indeed, there is need for both.