We all know how hard our newspaper industry is struggling. Every day when I pick up the Dayton Daily News it seems to get thinner and thinner with fewer and fewer hard hitting news stories. Almost all of them come from the Associated Press because we can't afford to hire people to do the job. Sales are down for every single paper across the country, thanks to television and the internet. Journalism has changed drastically. Lets face it, America would rather read gossip and the Enquirer. It's a little disheartening that we spent weeks seeing nothing but Octomom on every single news station. Was there nothing else newsworthy going on in the world? Really? With the bailouts already in place for banks, the auto industry, and wall street why wouldn't the newspaper industry present a request as well. Thus was born the "Newspaper Revitalization Act" This bailout would help out the newspapers by allowing them to become non profit organizations similar to public broadcasting networks. The president has already stated his willingness to consider the bill.
The main argument being used to push for this bailout is that the constitution guarantees freedom of the press and that if we lose our newspapers, there would be no one to "act as a watchdog over federal bureaucracy" This is true and I firmly believe that if newspapers were allowed to become nonprofit organizations there might be a lot more true journalism, which our country definitely needs. But at the same time we have to ask ourselves when does it end. Our government cannot bail out everyone that isn't the point of our government. So where do we draw the line?
I agree with the fact that our government can't and should not bail out everyone, although it seems to be trying to do that. As far as I am concerned our government already has its hands in too many places where they do not belong.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting observations. It's hard for me to imagine that individual blogger-journalists will be able to do the investigations to produce the news we all need to know. But no newspaper seems to have figured out the business model to keep running profitably. So a public bailout may be the only solution. But it's also hard to figure out how that would work without the public money being used to control the media.
ReplyDelete--Mike 10/9
Yet another bailout? I believe that it is too early to really know if bailouts are the "magic wand" we as a country are really looking for. As for a non-profit status, National Public Radio has lost a number of stations because of lack of funds, and Public Television is not much better off. I'll say this now, I will miss being able to "read" a paper newspaper if it gets to that point.
ReplyDeleteThe question I have would be were would the profits go? Newspapers are owned and when they turn a profit it goes to specific individuals. So would they be getting the profits tax free or what?
ReplyDeletePlus you are right we have to draw the line somewhere on who gets a bailout. Newspapers are good, but they are also a very slow and often outdated source. I would like to keep them but not at the cost of another bailout. This might just be one business model that will fail as technology advances.