The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced S. 673, the so-called “Newspaper Revitalization Act,” that would give outlets tax deals if they were to restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. That bill has so far attracted one cosponsor, Cardin’s Maryland colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D).
In early May, Gibbs said that while he hadn’t asked the president specifically about bailout options for newspapers, “I don’t know what, in all honesty, government can do about it.” “I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding,” he said.
I don’t know about you, but I feel a little tapped out at the moment.
In a headline : NO
Well, no matter how you spin it, journalism as we knew it is dead. We don’t need tax support, though.
It’s all your fault anyway, you readers. You click on the stupidest things, telling content providers it doesn’t matter what the quality of content is, as long as it gets the eyeballs. We are letting the industry get away with killing print.
NO!!!! How about the government bail regular people out. Instead of billions to rich people that cant maintain a viable business plan.
You know who needs a bailout? The steam engine manufacturers of america.
Turn the damn newspaper presses into instruments of the FED. Let them print their own bailout.
I’d love to see how Obama does the vetting for the new Czar of Newspapers.
#1. Do you believe everything printed in the New York Times?
#2. Do you hate everything broadcast by Fox News?
If yes, you’re hired.
NO
There is some chance banks that are bailed out will make a comeback. The same goes for GM. Newspapers are toast.
The newspapers were failing before the
depressionrecession. I say no, let them eat vacuum.If I wanted to bailout the newspapers I would begin buying them at the newsstands. Their failure to adapt to the changing environment of their market is their own failure, why should I support them for failing? Let them fail, let hte free market absorb them the correct way.
Perhaps we have a few too many reporters just floating around doing half-a$$ investigations and not doing real journalistic reporting…
Lets make the market a little more competitive, take the cream of the crop reporters and employ them. Let the remainder of the lazy journalists go find a new career or learn how to work a little harder.
Christ America Wake the hell up, we already have state run banks, and a state run auto manufacturer, now Obama wants state run press… WTF where will the lines be drawn?
NO.
I love how their argument is that without major newspapers, the news would go un-fact-checked. Um… when is the last time a major news outlet actually checked a fact? They’re all too busy printing sensationalist headlines to be bothered doing any actual reporting.
Well, I’m not in favor of a newspaper bailout either, but that’s not what is being proposed. A bailout means the government gives them cash.
The article says that this bill only permits them to convert to 501(c)3 corporations, essentially becoming non-profits. I don’t have a problem with that.
Here’s an idea. Tax the churches instead of newspapers. :).
There are nonprofits right now that produce their own mailers. So why is this law needed?
Why do we need a bill – why don’t they just dissolve them-self and start as a new nonprofit. Procedures and laws for both actions already exist.
To me it just sounds like a smoke screen (effective against #12) for another money grab.
Did we bail out the town criers when they became obsolete? If 90% of the content of newspapers wasn’t crap then I might buy them. The college gives out USA Today and the NYTimes for free and I pick them up regularly and neither of them are worth my money.
Yeah, another bailout…
Will the money actually go to supporting the workers or into the pockets of the Executives and upper management?
I want a guarantee that at least 80% of the funds will go directly to the workers…
The current “liberal” media is almost completely owned by huge, mega-billion dollar media corporations. Which are not liberal by any stretch of the imagination. They report what suits them and what improves their BOTTOM LINE. Investigative reporting, the heart of what makes the press so important, has gone by the wayside — too expensive.
You think government is unresponsive now — wait until there are no watchdogs left. You think corporations don’t care about you now — wait until there’s no one left reporting on corporate malfeasance. They’ll be able to cheat, pollute, defraud, and otherwise screw we the people, because there’ll be no one calling them out any more.
I’m continually amazed at how wingnuts have been so completely brainwashed to fight against their own interests. What’s left of the independent media is all that’s saving you from being completely owned by the monied interests in this country.
I’d say yes this idea, if he’s also gonna send me a few million to bail out my family’s debt and other financial woes. Otherwise no, newspapers are so 1900’s.
You wanna stimulate the economy? Give the people some of that stimulus money, not out-of-touch business executives who only manipulate the economy, unlike regular folks who DRIVE it.
And here come the ‘tards. How is this a bailout? Please – somebody go back to that newspaper and point out where it says they’re giving the newspapers money. It’s a fucking tax break you jack-asses. Farmers get them, small businesses get them, big businesses get them.
Please, before you post your ignorant ramblings know a few things. Know what a fucking newspaper is compared to a news agency. Know what journalism is compared to news. Know the difference between a local market and a national market. Know the differences between point-of-distribution in “hot models” versus “cold models”. Know what those two things are. Read a book. Learn shit from it.
Just because some of you are swingin’ dick tech geeks who know all about how to break an iphone doesn’t mean you know shit about actual news organizations, nor does it give you some kind of business savvy just because you buy from a company which is doing well with the internet.
“Blah blah blah, dinosaur media, I buy shiny shit from Apple and that makes me smart like Steve Jobs…look at me!”
Ok, so it’s special tax-break for newspapers. Not exactly a bail-out. But it is, effectively, giving one industry money at the expense of others. If the government doesn’t collect tax revenue from the newspaper industry, then it has to collect it from someone else.
I wonder, if the bill passes, how long until ACORN starts publishing a newspaper. And, would it mean that anyone (including bloggers) could qualify for some kind of tax-free status if they simply printed and distributed printed copies of their papers?
#19
Good post
Oh good. So they loose their no-profit status if they dare report against those in office. I vote no.
No – give the money to No Agenda instead
501c3 corporations cannot engage in any political activity. No endorsements or donations.
Having been a newspaper publisher I can say that no publisher wants to give up his power gained by virtue of buying ink by the barrel. They would have to incorporate as 501c4 to keep the politics in the mix.
Let’s raise their taxes instead. Make it too expensive to put out a paper that reprints AP stories and The New York Times bylines.
Papers pimping Obama can go to ACORN for help lowering their taxes.
Thermo.
YEA!! That’s it! Well, except that would mean Curry and Dvorak would have to be “Fair”, as in “Fairness Doctrine”.
Or they get two to the head…
NO NO NO NO NO…
For anyone that knows history…Look up the 1900-1940’s and WHAT those MAJOR newspaper OWNERS were doing..
TALK about FASCIST… NO WAY IN THIS WORLD.
If I am not terribly mistaken these nonprofit organizations will fail just as they are failing in their current state. If the government supported this then in essence they would be saying progress is bad. Did we bail out the makers of vinyl records when cassettes came around? Or how about the makers of VHS tapes when DVDs come around? If these news organizations want to stay afloat they must keep up with the ages, like all other media industries. And, if the government supports this movement expect DVDs to be around forever because they will bail them out too when Blu-Ray is the primary movie delivery medium.
“…would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.”
A new example of an oxymoron.
Is Micky Mouse in charge of the gubment? Next Obama’s gonna say he invented the internet.