With government bailouts now about as popular with taxpayers as “death panels,” a trio of newspaper advocates lobbied on Capitol Hill this morning for some subtler ways that the government can help save the industry. One example: a proposal by Newspaper Association of America CEO and President John Sturn that would let newspapers (and all businesses, for that matter) carry back net operating losses for five years instead of the current two. The problem is, Congress already voted to remove that measure from President Obama’s stimulus package, and the relief wouldn’t buy much time for newspapers to get out from under their debt problems, given the current advertising trends.
Princeton sociology and public affairs professor Paul Starr, pointing out that over the past 200 years many states have exempted newspapers from general sales tax as a way of recognizing the civic function newspapers play, made a direct appeal that the “production of news will require subsidy.” The only caveats Starr would place on such a system would be that the subsidies are neutral when it comes to viewpoints and without bias towards either print or digital platforms. As for doling out the funds, Starr envisions a Corporation for Public Broadcasting model for the industry, though considering the amount of cutting that program has received over the last few decades, the bear scaps that might be set aside for newspapers would hardly make a dent in their financial woes. Plus, the partisan wrangling over even the tiniest newspaper subsidies would probably cause even greater logjams in the appropriations process.
Perhaps acknowledging the futility of pushing for a “bailout-that-dare-not-speak-its-name,” Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism’s director Tom Rosenstiel merely sought some modicum of sympathy for the newspaper industry. He didn’t have to try too hard. The Joint Economic Committee hearing started with chairperson Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) laying out the industry’s plight — Bureau of Labor Statistics data says newspaper publishers cut nearly 50,000 jobs between June ’08 and June ’09, or roughly 15 percent of that industry’s workforce, and lost 23 percent of its revenue between 2006 and 2008.
“So should we care whether newspapers survive? Perhaps not. Typewriters have come and gone. But I believe we do have a stake as citizens in having reporters who are independent, who work full time, and who go out and gather news, not just talk about it, and who try to get the facts and the context right,” said Rosensteil, a former LA Times staffer. The implication here is that if newspaper companies go under, the current state of blogs and citizen reporters are not up to the task of showing up week after week to “sit in the front row, and bear witness.” But who’s to say the current state of blogs and citizen journalists won’t evolve and perhaps do an even better job of bearing witness?
It’s not clear what — if any — action will come out of these hearings. But it might provide more momentum for legislation that would make it easier for local newspapers to apply for non-profit status. Maloney introduced such a bill in the House last week as a companion to Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D-MD) similar proposal.

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