Most Americans oppose any Congressional U.S. newspaper bailout

Posted by Lisette García on September 24, 2009 at 12:35 PM

As few as 20 percent of Americans polled by Sacred Heart University would not oppose a tax-funded bailout of U.S. newspapers, reported Henry Blodget in an online article published Wednesday by CNNMoney.com.

Reasons given by those polled include low readership of print media and moderate satisfaction with online sources, Blodget wrote. Expressing concern over the quality and credibility of unpaid information, U.S. President Barack Obama showed modest support for a bailout when asked about it during a recent interview with the Toledo Blade.

"Journalistic integrity, you know, fact-based reporting, serious investigative reporting, how to retain those ethics in all these different new media and how to make sure that it's paid for, is really a challenge," Obama told reporters from the Toledo Blade (Ohio) and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania). "But it's something that I think is absolutely critical to the health of our democracy."

Meanwhile, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room reported that Sen. Ben Cardin, a Democrat from Maryland, has introduced S. 673, the so-called "Newspaper Revitalization Act," that would give news organisations tax deals if restructured as 501(c)(3) corporations. The bill has attracted one cosponsor, another Maryland Senator, Barbara Mikulski, also a Democrat.

For their part, newspaper editors oppose the Act, which would bar newspapers from endorsing candidates or expressing certain partisan political opinions in order to keep the non-profit status, according to E-Links. Non-profit status would make the newspapers eligible for philanthropic assistance.

"Any newspaper that would surrender its First Amendment right to collect, disseminate and comment on the news would, in reality, cease to be a newspaper at all," the editorial board of the Delaware County Times (Pennsylvania) opined in its pages on Tuesday.

"The newspaper industry is not seeking a financial 'bailout' or any other kind of special subsidy," Newspaper Association of America (NAA) president John Sturm told a committee hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives on "The Future of Newspapers," Agence France Presse reported Thursday. "We don't believe direct government financial assistance is appropriate for an industry whose core mission is news gathering, analysis and dissemination."

According to Editor & Publisher, seven major U.S. newspaper companies are in bankruptcy with 30,000 jobs lost since 2007.