The somewhat depressing and controversial possibility of a newspaper bailout turned into a stone-cold reality in the past few months as politicians, including Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Ben Cardin and President Obama, have hinted at giving the newspaper industry a life vest to save a sinking industry. Kerry, in his dire remarks at the Senate hearing on “Future of Journalism” a few weeks ago, made a call to action to save newspapers and prevent future harm to democracy. Regardless of where direction of this policy is headed, the idea of a government bailout of the news industry, which is supposed to be the “watchdog” of the government, raises a few ethical flags.
President Obama echoed Kerry’s concerns at last weekend’s White House Correspondents Dinner, addressing the current state of the industry:
“…It’s also true that your ultimate success as an industry is essential to the success of our democracy. It’s what makes this thing work. You know, Thomas Jefferson once said that if he had the choice between a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, he would not hesitate to choose the latter.
Clearly, Thomas Jefferson never had cable news to contend with — but his central point remains: A government without newspapers, a government without a tough and vibrant media of all sorts, is not an option for the United States of America.”
Obama was perhaps posturing to a room full of journalists, but the message comes across clear: newspapers need help and their existence is a fundamental requirement for democracy to successfully survive. And any time democracy is threatened, the government will come to the rescue, right?
Sen. Ben Cardin actually has a concrete plan, The Newspaper Revitalization Act, to aid newspapers in their time of need. His plan allows newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, and thus receive the same tax-benefits as a non-profit organization. Revenue from advertising and subscription would be tax exempt, and contributions to support news coverage or operations could be tax deductible. Cardin’s proposal became a reality on the state-level with this week’s news that Washington’s governor approved a tax cut for the state’s newspaper industry. The law gives newspaper publishers a 40 percent cut in Washington’s main business tax.
The catch for Cardin’s proposal is that though newspapers would still be able to report on all issues, namely politics and political campaigns, the government would prohibit the newspapers from making political endorsements. This raises two ethical questions.
The first is whether newspapers supported with government funding should be barred from making political endorsements.
Political endorsements by newspapers and media organizations are a very essence of freedom of speech. Readers often find value in seeing a newspaper’s evaluation of the candidates given that the paper has in-depth coverage of political candidates throughout the course of a campaign. Putting a muzzle on journalists in this capacity is a step in the wrong direction.
There are existing models for publicly-funded or assisted media that are not limited to endorsing political positions. The clearest example of this is PBS networks. PBS is a non-profit media organization that is partially funded by federal and state money (less than 50% of PBS’s revenue comes from government sources). PBS stations are not prohibited from taking a stance on political issues, in accordance with the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, but PBS and the government has been embroiled in several sticky situations involving political bias and politicians feeling that they can somehow control PBS’ coverage.
Most recently, Kenneth Tomlinson, the former Republican chairman of the Center for Public Broadcasting, the non-profit in charge of distributing federal funds to public television and radio stations, openly criticized PBS for a liberal bias. Tomlinson even hired an outside investigator to evaluate whether PBS’s political news coverage was slanting towards the left. In fact, it was revealed that most viewers didn’t think PBS’s news favored liberals; however, Tomlinson and other Republicans engaged in a heated debate questioning the bias of the well-respected news organization. Like PBS, the BBC, UK’s largest media organization which is partially funded by taxpayer money, has found itself embroiled in its fair share of accusations of political bias.
Some would argue that PBS represents a segment of the media in the U.S. whereas a newspaper bailout would effect thousands of news organizations. I fear that if most mainstream newspapers and organizations took on a similar model to PBS, many politicians would feel that they had the free reign to not only question, but investigate, the bias of any unfavorable news coverage if it didn’t lend support to their political leanings.
The second ethical question is whether journalists will be able to deliver unbiased reporting of the very people and institutions that are helping to subsidize their jobs. I think journalists at PBS have done an effective job of objectively reporting the news, despite the political pressure the organization faces from politicians. However, newspapers and thus journalists who are “saved” by government intervention are in a slightly different situation. From its inception, PBS was meant to be a non-profit news organization which drew funding from a variety of sources, including the government. In the case of a newspaper bailout, the government could don the image of a “knight in shining armor” to journalists who, without the bailout, would be unemployed. Will all journalists and media execs buy into this? I’m not sure of the answer but the adoption of this perception surely could effect objective news reporting.
Yet having an appreciation for a policy, and letting that appreciation impact professional integrity are two different things. Would the politicians who supported the bailout receive favorable coverage? Most journalists would respond with a resounding no, as they should. Journalists are all beholden to an unwritten code of ethics when it comes to reporting the truth. And even in one of the most disastrous modern-day cases of a politician’s efforts to control the media, journalists have still proven that they fight to report the truth. Italy’s prime minster, Silvio Berlusconi, has been accused of limiting the press’ freedom of expression by controlling negative coverage of his government on state-run media networks and papers as well as the institutions he controls financially. Many Italian journalists have retaliated, quitting their jobs, forming protest groups, and advocating fiercely for greater freedom of speech. These reporters have chosen dissent and unemployment over submission and employment within a state-biased media.
But the dilemma becomes significantly more cloudy when the people throwing a life vest to the drowning industry are the same people who need to be evaluated through an objective lens. And the question remains in the case of a bailout, if there will forever be the government’s shadow hanging over the media organizations who survive thanks to these benefits.
(Photo credit: Flickr/VaxXzine)
Marc Andressen said that “let the newspaper industry die” and he’s right. Saving them won’t replace people’s need for real time news on the Internet. The people have voted with their money and preferences. The newspaper industry will die, the only question is will they die a slow death or a fast one. Should we have kept the floppy drive business afloat?
I’m not sure whether referring newspaper insdustry die is good.Some people do need newspaper more than they needed the internet.
I don’t think the newspaper industry will fade that fast. Oh.. and by the way – Did you guys see http://www.twibeo.com launched today? It’s a microblogging site that lets you share videos, photos and text in your updates.
http://www.twibeo.com
Clearly, I woke up from my drunken web 2.0 haze a bit too soon. Wake me up when the feature-based companies are done “launching.”
That site spreads spyware. Go there at your own peril.
@George “Should we have kept the floppy drive business afloat?”
We should support all outdated industries if it means more votes.
Lets exchange pro newspaper legislation, for pro politician news coverage.
One word, Conrad Black.
One more word, Tyler Cavell
http://www.cbc....ad_1.html#78502
who tried to follow in his footsteps yet failed horribly.
Let’s let newspapers go. I think that the concern here is that we are running out of profitable businesses not only in the US, but world wide.
That technology has essentially bankrupted many of our traditional industries.
We can bail them all out. We need to have these grumpy old men that run these joints to suck it up and retire.
We need to find stuff people ARE willing to pay for. Marijuana legalization was discussed by our governor Arnold here in California.
We should just give people what they want instead of shoving what they don’t want down their throats and subsidize it. I’m not saying marijuana is a good one, but if not that, let’s find other things people WANT to consume at cost.
That should say “We can’t bail them all out.” Individual people should not be burdened with corporate subsidies like in Canada. Canada is a craphole.
Where did the newspaper money go???
http://www.thes.../article/222027
“will Conrad Black’s $12,000 18th-Century commode with fossilized marble top stick in the minds of ready-for-summer jurors at the former press baron’s Chicago trial?
Or his $4,400 towel warmer?”
These newspaper people live WELL out of their means. Conrad and the Chicago Sun times is just a small example.
Do online bloggers live like this? Most of them do not.
They had the money, they spent it. They should have an ebay sale now, or they should close down. That’s America. Not Canada.
What on earth is your point? Conrad Black “made” money by private newspapers & breaking the law, not sure how subsidies play in to that. Or how Canada really enters in to it, Black renounced his citizenship, spent most of his time in the United Kingdom & USA.
—
On the subject, no newspapers shouldn’t be saved. Newspapers != media. TV news, and perhaps one day internet sites, are gathering news, reporting stories, etc.
Small towns might miss their papers, but then they should be buying it in the first place.
Cause you know newspapers and marijuana are direct analogues…
Yes, the newspapers need to die out like any unprofitable business does. New media outlets will come from the ashes.
The main problem is that people are used to free content on the internet. What all these new providers should do is start charging for their content. How long do you think Google News will work as an aggragator if all the content they’re aggregating is now available by subscription or pay by story only?
I think it’ll be a matter of time before the big content providers will start pulling back content and charging for it in a bid to monetize it on the internet after loosing their traditional revenue streams.
It’s unfortunate that people are going to lose their jobs, but should we really be bailing out a business model that’s on its way out anyway. Why don’t we bail out telegram companies and beeper manufacturers.
Business, communication and quite frankly life evolves. Their needs to be a drastic shift but to bailout newspapers just seems ridiculous.
We read news papers more out of nostalgic reasons then for any real practical reason.
“Why don’t we bail out telegram companies and beeper manufacturers.”
Believe me, if Obama had been the president then, he would have.
Almost every fiscal action taken by Baracko has raised ethical flags. All of his fanboys followers need to wake up, he is selling America down the river.
This is nauseating. The fact is that the newspaper industry is in a death spiral in the same way the horse and buggy became obsolete with the advent of Henry Ford’s mass produced cars. To even consider interfering with this process is completely insane. The federal government is seriously in co-dependent mode at this point.
What – are the news agencies “too big to fail”? Give me a break. If the newspaper moguls are incapable of properly adapting to the changing medium for how we consume news, then they should give up the ghost.
The issue is they (the newspapers) still hold considerable power over the politicians.
This will diminish with time, but not before a considerable inefficient distribution of resources is handed the newspapers direction.
Well, there is a difference. The car got you from Point A to Point B. The jury is still out if the internet can take over local news reporting. So far, it has not done so.
I think we may undergo a dark period where newspapers die and there is nothing to replace what they do. Local politicians will love that.
Part of the reason I stopped reading newspapers & watching TV news was their rampant bias and sense of self-righteousness.
The amount of Photoshopping that occurred during the Israeli/Lebanon war confirmed my view.
And the amount of misreporting on legal/medical issues is sickening.
Let them die. They would have had less of a problem if they had stayed “reporters” instead of turning into “journalists”.
I just want the news reported to me. I don’t want a semi-opinion piece mascaraing as news and written by some poorly educated overly credentialed guy who choose his profession so he could “change the world”.
Freedom, freedom, freedom!
An independent media is critical to a democracy. Government-funded-news opens the door for government-influenced-news, which opens the door to government-controlled-news.
Yes, technology has disrupted the way news is delivered. However the demand for credible, professional news and commentary has not waned. If anything, we’re consuming it at unprecedented rates.
The professional news industry may not have cycled through its downturn yet, but nor is it in any danger of disappearing. It will rebound. It will evolve. It is evolving. The demand is there. The supply is there. The only thing missing are the advertisers.
Which probably means a new business model is in order. I don’t have the answers, but I hope ultimately it’s not a government bailout.
Although temporary transitional tax relief may be more palatable…
I think I read something in the Economist where they were talking about newspapers trying to play in both online and traditional and not doing well at either. Perhaps if they just chose online and scrapped traditional altogether they might have a shot.
Agreed. The main issue is that they don’t know how to get a revenue stream online. There is only one way they can do that and that’s if all of them start charging for their content in either a subscription or on an ala carte basis.
But for that to work, they’d all have to get on board with it.
Wonder if they’ll co-operate enough to do so?
That’s not the main issue at all. The fact is, online advertising revenue cannot support a newspaper no matter how well it’s done. I don’t think many of the posters here realize just how expensive it is to put an advertisement in a printed newspaper. You can’t just exchange one revenue stream for the other and keep floating along.
Secondly, my other major disagreement with many of the posters so far is on the importance of the newspaper industry as a whole. This isn’t a case of letting one product (newspapers) be replaced by another, better product (online news, allegedly). Online news DEPENDS upon newspapers. As similar as a blogger’s story may look to that of a professional journalist, the bloggers get much of their research and information from the newspapers. If the newspapers die, all news dies. Bloggers don’t do investigative journalism. They provide commentary.
> The fact is, online advertising revenue cannot support a newspaper no matter how well it’s done.
The NYT gets more revenue online than it spends on reporting.
If that’s true, I have to wonder why they’re in such a financial crisis right now.
Regardless, the NYT’s situation isn’t representative of the rest of the industry. They’re the NYT, after all. We can’t survive on two or three big newspapers. We need the little guys, too. And they sure as shit don’t pull in more online revenue than they spend on reporting.
You don’t need paper to produce the news.
No, you need credentials and credibility. Newspapers have those. Blogs do not. And neither can be gained overnight, which is what we’d need the blogs to do if our newspapers go under.
Some of the most respected journalists with whom I’ve worked over the years have gone independent and successfully transitioned to digital media. They are among the most widely read today. You act like bloggers are amateurs. Hardly.
That a few journalists can successfully transition does not mean that an industry can. And we need an industry’s worth of investigative political journalists to keep the government in check. Journalists who work with PR people in the Valley, by the way, don’t face the same challenges that investigative reporters in Washington do, e.g. getting high ranking political officials for sources. Good luck making that happen without the name of a respected newspaper behind you.
Actually, it is more complicated than that. The traditional media is relying more and more on bloggers for stories, including The Economist and the New York Times:
http://www.salo...ites/index.html
I think it goes both ways. But tellingly, local newspapers are doing less and less investigative reporting.
Great article, but it’s not really what I’m getting at. Where we get our editorials doesn’t really matter. You don’t need hard sources to write an editorial.
actually, the economist (i’ve been a loyal subscriber for almost 30 years) did write a good, short, and deadly accurate evaluation of the dire prospects and true importance of the 4th estate.
There is an interesting talk at Stanford on Tuesday on titled “News in the 21st Century: Who Reads Print Anymore?”. Panelists include Guy Kawasaki, Rob Curley, Norm Fogelsong and others! Check ‘em out at http://www.vlab...le.html?aid=271
We can say that newspapers should die and stuff but how many of us represent the entire population what we make use or not use is not what the entire population does. We should look at data and get polls of people of all walks of life rich/poor, educated/uneducated, Techgeeks/non techgeeks, different elasticities etc to get the habits of people there is someway they surived this much so there has to be something keeping them afloat.
Just because we dont want them doesnt mean the rest of 300 + million people feel the same is thats the case a few other things cant be discontinued now also.
The best thing that should be done is to transform there sites into the papers should have put a lock on sites that offer news when the web started to get to the masses so there would be no Yahoo News, Google News, Msn News etc.
Some just need to use what they already have such as CBS news.com but that goes to a damn tech site that is stupidest s**t they’ve ever done f**k cbs new just have news.com
Well articulated. You must be a newspaper wrighter guy and stuff, like and.
Ok, I voted for Obama. Obama if you give the newspapers a bailout you will not have my vote next time around.
You cannot bail out these tired old industries and businesses anymore. If they can’t stay in business on their own they don’t deserve to be in business. Why would you give these industries money when they are just going to die and go away anyway.
Are you an idiot! Seriously this is really starting to piss me off!
WTF!
I voted for him as well, and in my opinion Wall Street shouldn’t have gotten a bailout; the banks shouldn’t have gotten a bailout; Detroit shouldn’t have gotten a bailout; but the importance of the newspaper industry cannot be measured with dollars and cents. We need them desperately.
No, we don’t need them at all. I am pretty sure you have heard of the internet as you just used it correct?
Let all the journalist find jobs at a local blog and be done with it.
You have no understanding of professional journalism.
Giving advantage to sustaining technologies makes it harder for disruptive technologies to succeed.
Governments need to ask themselves, which kind of innovation do they want? Making it harder to innovate properly is madness during globalisation and current economic crisis.
I couldn’t agree more! Why does Obama want our economy to be based on inudstries that cannot survive on their own. It will actually make our economy worse in the long run.
Its regrowth! Let the forest burn!
It isn’t about basing our economy on failed industries. It is about political payback. The unions and news media worked very hard for Obama, this is their reward.
You cannot force people to become paying customers.
If no customers, then no business, no business means no companies.
The Internet information is very direct and sometimes real-time. Quality can be poor.
Printed newspapers have at least a delay of 12hours. During that time the quality of information should increase.
The problem the quality doesn’t increase over that time thus there is no added value brought by the newspapers.
While I am in support of a radical overhaul of how we journalists approach the distribution and profiting of news and newslikes, I feel that a discussion about whether or not government subsidized newspapers are inherently evil misses the point: it’s been done before, and done successfully. Subsidized European papers will be just as virulent against their government as they were before the check’s written.
Unlike advertisers, who can threaten to cut a media company off if an unfavorable review or investigation’s run, a representative government’s got its hands tied on when it /can’t/ cough up the cash. There is an inherently greater distance between a reporter funded by a private corporation and a reporter funded by an impersonal and legislatively enforced government allocation.
Promoting the spread of news on dead trees is the wrong direction to be looking.
Digital is more effective in spreading news and that advantage can’t be fought.
The main thing newspaper have is they still hold considerable political power, even though that is evaporating fast. Would be a brave politician to go against the newspapers in 2009, it maybe more likely in 2019.
Everyone is running around crying for bailouts these days. What happened to the “Survival of the fittest?”
Hmmm… Seems the only companies/people worthy of a bail-out are the financially & morally retarded.
Kind of like the change wasted on the homeless in Harvard square…Thanks Obama!
I watched the hearing, and there is absolutely no talk of bailing out the newspaper industry. When I say bailout, I mean sending taxpayer dollars to newspapers. I think that distinction needs to be made here. A few tax rule tweaks does not amount to a bailout.
I guess, while you’re basing “bailout” on the amount of taxpayer loss, I’m basing it on the inquiry : “Why should a private company receive public assistance?”
Why should my hard earned money go towards helping any greedy CEO,not just the Newspaper Industry, that didn’t have the foresight to embrace technology & their employees rather than their own shallow agendas.
They had plenty of opportunities to invest in their future & they failed. It’s called Capitalism for a reason! I didn’t see them sharing the wealth when they were riding high,but, now I should have to give what little I earn to help an irrelevant dinosaur that panders fluff on paper in the face of our current environment crisis… Yea, Sure.
There are several factors that have contributed to the demise of the news paper industry: their unwillingness to ’sincerely’ pursue new modes of delivery, chief among them. This problem was only made worse during the Bush years in which the news papers repeatedly stopped reporting news, encouraged not reporting the news and removed those who attempted to report the news. This lead to a lack of trust for an industry that must be trusted and became a crisis. The result was an industry already shedding readers accelerating its demise by shunning readers that were interested in some semblance of the truth as opposed to the Administration press junkets masquerading vetted reporting.
The conflicts referenced above are very real if not outright hazards. The concern of Government running banks is laughable but palatable compared to it even remotely being intertwined with the Press: a nightmare of the literal worst proportions.
The notion of the government bailing out a failing industry is utterly repulsive. If an entire industry is going bankrupt it is because its way of doing business is becoming obsolete. If that is the case for newspapers, so be it. Adapt or die. The end.
Bailing out the newspaper industry will not change the way they do business, nor will it make them any more viable a means of reporting the news than they are today. What it will do, however, is have them all standing in line for the next handout when history repeats itself over and over as a result of their undeniable incompetence and inability to accept that the world, and how people are learning about the news that goes on around it, are changing.
We live in a nation whose government sees its role as a corporate and big-business savior simply because those in charge within those industries haven’t the sense and foresight to evolve along with the world around them.
Newspapers have had the opportunity to change their business models for some time now, and they’ve refused. They’ve spat in the face of technological evolution and they should pay the price for their short-sightedness and inability to adapt to the new technology-based world.
It makes me ill to think that even a fraction of a cent of my tax dollars will continue to go to bail out industries that should, quite simply, cease to exist – like the thousands of small businesses that fail annually. Apparently, though, the rules for big business are staggeringly different than the rules for the rest of us.