12/31/2008

Government Control of Newspapers?

Do you think that this might create a conflict of interest among newspapers? The story is here:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press.

Nicastro represents Connecticut's 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain.

That is because publisher Journal Register, in danger of being crushed under hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, says it cannot afford to keep them open anymore.

Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and petitioned the state government to do something about it. "The media is a vitally important part of America," he said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations.

To some experts, that sounds like a bailout, a word that resurfaced this year after the U.S. government agreed to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the automobile and financial sectors.

Relying on government help raises ethical questions for the press, whose traditional role has been to operate free from government influence as it tries to hold politicians accountable to the people who elected them. Even some publishers desperate for help are wary of this route.

Providing government support can muddy that mission, said Paul Janensch, a journalism professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, and a former reporter and editor.

"You can't expect a watchdog to bite the hand that feeds it," he said.

The state's Department of Economic and Community Development is offering tax breaks, training funds, financing opportunities and other incentives for publishers, but not cash. . . . .


Does the fact that they get all these subsidies in non-cash forms really matters at all? What is the difference between tax breaks and giving the publishers some cash?

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1 Comments:

Blogger Martin G. Schalz said...

I find this subject highly disturbing.

If an entity must persue taxpayer funding, in order to survive, is there not a quid pro quo involved?

To seek votes to remain in business requires some form of 'wink, wink' does it not?

Favorable coverage of those who voted to keep said media outlets afloat? To put it another way, would a conservative newspaper be treated the same way as a liberal newspaper?

Newspapers must stay offline, and present what they have to offer in the traditional print media if they are to survive. To do otherwise is suicide.

If I had the choice for paying for a paper, or simply reading it for the cost of an internet connection, why bother with the additional cost?

Reading a newspaper has a tangible feel to it. I can do so while having breakfast, while commuting via public transit. During my lunch break etc.

Unlike electronic media, I can put down a newspaper and resume reading it whenever I want.

If newspapers fail to focus on their pluses, and continue to go online, they deserve what they get, and we should not have to pay them to continue to fail.

Then again, politicians will do what they can to garner favor no matter what the cost is to we the taxpayers.

1/02/2009 6:51 PM  

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