Newspaper Bailouts

You had to know this was coming.  Newspaper bailouts have been bandied about here and there, but not much has been done toward that end.  That's all changed now.  A bill was introduced today in the Senate to provide a form of bailout for newspapers.  It's not exactly a cash infusion like AIG, but it does offer them a lifeline of sorts.  From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.

"This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat," said Senator Benjamin Cardin.

A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs.

So much for a free and independent press.  It's not like we've really had that in awhile, but this would certainly be the death knell to an industry already choking on their own effluvium.

A newspaper owned by a larger company would be ineligible unless the newspaper was sold to a non-profit to run.  Once run as a non-profit, some different rules would apply.

Cardin's Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.

Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.

Somehow, I derive little comfort from that part of the bill.   Reporting can often be slanted and facts either left out, or distorted just enough to make your side look better.  The fact that they would be barred from making endorsements is a minor impediment.

Gone would be any pretense that the newspapers were some kind of a watchdog over the government.  My dog is a good watchdog, but he won't bite me and presumably the press would not bite the hand that was feeding it the tax breaks it needed to survive.  All it would take would be an accusation of impartiality and a prospective loss of tax-exempt status and the watchdog would quietly remove its teeth.

There are a lot of reasons why newspapers are failing and although I've speculated as to the cause of death, my guess is probably as good as anyone's.  If there was a better guess as to the reason for failure, one would think the owners would be be fixing the problem rather than shutting down the presses.  Even if this abomination passes, I think it's only postponing the inevitable. NPR is not all that popular and making a newspaper into some kind  of print version is not going to save the industry.

No respectable newspaper should even consider something like this.  It goes against everything a free press stands for.   Hmmmm...check that, they shed that respectability cloak years ago.

On the other hand, ACORN will soon be flush with a few billion from the stimulus bill.  One might speculate that purchasing the Seattle Post-Intelligencer woul be something they may want to look at.  If you can control the news, no one will notice you are rigging the vote.

VW