Governor: No bailout for newspapers

Posted by Emily Dilling on May 21, 2009 at 11:00 AM

Texas Governer Rick Perry told a group of high school newspaper editors that government would not engage in newspaper bailouts, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Instead of asking for government funding, Perry suggested news sources should adopt and integrate the Internet and social networking media, offering the teens a signed copy of his book to the first one to follow him on Twitter.

Perry told the students that their generation is "more than ready to navigate this new landscape and use all the resources that are available" and that, regarding newspaper bailouts, he does not think "it's the government's role to pick winners and losers. We need to make our tax policies, our regulations, our legal system fair and balanced so you have the opportunity to go out there and risk your capital."

The Dallas Morning News article did not mention if Perry discussed the broken business model of online news content or the recession-induced advertising downturn.