Uncle Sam the newspaperman
Should the government play a role in saving newspapers?
Uncle Sam the newspaperman
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
Next Wednesday, the corporate chain that publishes the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Austin American-Statesman, and 15 other newspapers will shut down its Washington bureau and thus abandon the time-honored tradition of keeping tabs on national politicians for the folks back home. This, of course, is no April Fool's Day joke. The newspapers of San Diego, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Toledo, Pittsburgh, Hartford, Houston, Newark, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Philadelphia (among many others) no longer have staff reporters on full-time duty in the Nation's Capital - which, aside from the tragic implications of this trend, seems a tad ironic, given the fact that Washington these days is the font of so much history-making news.
I stress the Washington angle here, only because that's my prime focus. The print journalism crisis, of course, extend far beyond that realm. The economic squeeze precipitated by the Internet (on top of the squeeze that was imposed by Wall Street during the decades immediately preceding the Internet) has come close to devastating newspapers nationwide, big and small (and not just the "liberal" ones). As Walter Isaacson, the former Time magazine editor and celebrated biographer of printer Benjamin Franklin, recently wrote, the "meltdown" is so severe that "it is now possible to contemplate a time in the near future when major towns will no longer have a newspaper."
So it was in the midst of this crisis, earlier this week, when an unusual Senate bill was introduced to rescue the beleaguered industry with the help of Uncle Sam. Sponsor Benjamin Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, has dubbed it the Newspaper Revitalization Act, and its prospects for passage are probably identical to those of thousands of other bills that typically get tossed into the hopper. In other words, close to nil. And that's without even considering some of the revitalization bill's potential flaws.
But the Cardin bill may well trigger a worthy public policy debate over whether government should play a vital role in aiding the newspaper industry in its time of peril, for the purpose of ensuring an informed citizenry. (Lest you forget, the bloggers and web news aggregators and talk-show loudmouths and cable TV fulminators would be struck mute if not for the information supplied every day by the print professionals.)
Cardin's idea - actually, it's an idea that has kicked around for awhile - is to rejigger the tax code so that newspapers could operate as tax-exempt non-profits, much the way public broadcasting operates for educational purposes under the current tax code. Under the terms of Cardin's bill, newspapers wouldn't have to pay federal taxes on the money they reap from ad sales and subscriptions; and they could solicit tax-exempt donations. All told, Cardin said on Tuesday, "We need to look a different model to save local newspapers."
Some in the news business have already questioned the Cardin concept on practical grounds; for instance, would individual donors and foundations provide enough money, year after year, to support expensive news-gathering operations? But most skeptics appear to object for philosophical reasons, arguing that the federal government has no business helping (and therefore meddling with) the newspaper industry.
Under the tax code, non-profits have to be remain politically neutral; in translation, the editorial pages of Cardin's non-profit newspapers would not be able to endorse political candidates. Some newspaper people might not see this restriction as such a big deal; there is an active school of thought that editorial endorsements don't influence many readers anyway. But that potential restriction has prompted a number of skeptics (including the lawyers for some newspapers) to argue that Cardin's idea would essentially put the IRS into the newsroom.
The broader argument is that the government should butt out entirely and leave the industry alone, because any assistance at all would constitute a violation of free speech rights. A Cleveland newspaper columnist writes today, "It's sad to see newspapers struggling...But it would be infinitely sadder to see newspapers cash in their First Amendment birthright - their independence - for a little breathing space." And John Morton, a well-known newspaper industry analyst, said the other day: "Anytime you give the newspaper industry a break, it raises the question about the independence of the press."
But anyone making that argument is not cognizant of our history, clear back to the Founding Fathers. One big reason why newspapers gained traction in early 19th-century America was because the federal government gave the industry a break. It set up all kinds of postal subsidies so that newspapers could cheaply grow their circulation, and it subsidized printer contracts. It has subsequently supported newspapers by enacting copyright protection and the Freedom of Information Act. Several decades ago, it enacted the Newspaper Preservation Act, which has allowed regional papers with separate newsroom staffs to merge their business operations.
Meanwhile - and this strikes me as the most perverse of ironies - the prime cause of the newspaper industry's current woes is the Internet....and there would be no Internet today if not for the lavish government subsidies that made it possible. The Internet was birthed as a Defense Department program, and later nurtured by a federal agency, the National Science Foundation. All constitutional issues aside, maybe the government has a responsibility to help save the industry that it has (albeit inadvertently) helped to destroy.
Cardin's idea may well die, but the debate won't. Other ideas are already being floated; for instance, tax credits on the money that a consumer spends for a newspaper subscription. As the Columbia Journalism Review argued two years ago, the bottom line is that "it would be wise to consider the many ways that government could simply protect journalism from market pressures."
The counter-argument is that, if the free market wants newspapers to die, then so be it. And, of course, many Americans are rooting for death. Which brings me to this story:
Ten days ago, in Philadelphia, a corrupt Democratic state senator named Vince Fumo was finally brought to justice in court, convicted on all counts. As the prosecutors specifically acknowledged, Fumo would have never been nailed if not for the herculean efforts of Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Craig McCoy, who dug out the story over a span of years. McCoy was able to do this because he was a seasoned investigator, and he was a seasoned investigator because a newspaper had nurtured his professional talents over several decades by paying him a full-time wage with health benefits.
So here's my question to those of you who are rooting for death:
If local newspapers die, who's going to be around to root out the next Fumo? You?
Comment removed.
I'm guessing that as newspapers die, those "news" outlets (on cable TV & the internet) will do one of two things (or a combination of the two): 1] become worse by having even more unsubstantiated "news" floating around, or 2] pay for quality news "product" themselves to replace what they've lost b/c of the death of newspapers. I think #1 will happen first, which will then create the need for #2. In other words, I think the market will fix this.— yobill626- Dick: So you're stating that the bastion of Philly Liberalism, The Inquirer, laid the groundwork for one of their own to take down Liberal Dem thief Vince Fumo. Wow! Are you sure? I thought the Inquirer only took shots at Conservative Republican crooks?— yobill626
The government will continue to get more and more corrupt and self interested (can it get more self interested than it is now?) until the American people wake up and realize that they are members of families, and members of neighborhoods, and members of townships, and of counties, and of states, and that there is no reason for the Federal government to stake such an enormous claim on our assets and our freedom. The focus will then return where it belongs, to our local communities, and the desire for local information will rise again, creating demand for local information. The free market will solve the news problem, and will eventually get the federal government out of our lives.— Mr. Smith- I can see one of the reasons why many in the upper echelon of the GOP just lose their mind when it comes to trying to fight Obama's ability to communicate. I sit here typing this while listening to him do his Web based Town Hall. Whatever you think of the position he's coming from, the way he can simplify his view & then explain it back to you is impressive (Answering the question on education & job creation was one example). How can they match that?— yobill626
- The leading small and mean people who make this site, and many others, unappealing on which to post are those who openly cheer for newspapers to die, for the Inquirer to die and even for Polman, the vehicle for their posts, to lose his job (ironically, Polman does not work for the Inquirer, but facts -- the irony -- never get in the way of many posters). Why would people cheer to have their sources of information eliminated? Small and mean. And dumb. And dedicated to becoming more so.— Djoko Pritza
- tom: from last blog - a denier is one who misuses others' work and intentionally misstates things and cherrypicks to make their point. If you feel that this makes you a denier, then so be it. The ENTIRE point of the article you provided the link to was not that warming may level off for a couple of years and then resume, it was hey, maybe we aren't actually warming at all. Here's the opening line of the article you posted "A paper published in scientific journal Nature this week has reignited the debate about Global Warming, by predicting that the earth won't be getting any warmer until 2015. " Both portions of this sentence are untrue. The paper stated a) warming is occurring, and b) will continue to occur and c) may be level for a few years but will then accelerate. Plus, the authors are VERY explicit not to use their data to predict what any one year will do; they also predict that the warming will begin to accelerate again BEFORE 2015. .. Why do I call him a denier? He's the same guy that wrote the article "Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered" (link at the end). Please read it - then read the Editors note at the bottom, which was obviously posted later. He was questioning, much like he does with NASA, data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. It was the entire point of the article. Unlike NASA, they actually responded. Their response was then posted by the editor. Goddard's subsequent response - basically, "Oops. They were right". When ALL of your articles submitted to the Register ar of the Global Warming isn't happening variety, then yes, you could be labeled a denier. ..... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/15/goddard_arctic_ice_mystery/— still_independent
- yobill626 you are obviously in Obamarapture. The press conference the other night made no sense. He is going to bring down the cost of health care by spending billions more on it? He is going to cut the deficit by increasing it to levels unprecedented even by Bush? Imposing taxes on charitable giving is not going to reduce contributions? Why don't you start listening to what he says?— jwad56
We're always reading that newspapers are failing because of outside forces. The focus is never on what's happening internally that may be a contributor. Is there a problem with the reporting, the agenda, or the perspective that may be turning people off? Further, the solutions must always come from the outside, in this case, government (big suprise). You never hear soultions regarding what journalists can do to turn things around.— jmc- Nearly all INVESTIGATIVE journalism is through the print media. Remember all the local news stations used to have a "I" team? National news programs had them as well. Too much news these days starts with "such and such reported...." When's the last time the "new media" broke a story that actually required an investigation? Local news takes its queues from newspapers. national news takes its queues from local news. "Alternative Media" such as internet-only services, cable news, talk radio, etc. simply comment/report on all of the above. I agree with yobill - there won't be any actual reporting going on. Look at the Sludge Report for the future of "news". There is no actual reporting, just links to other sites, and the occasional article that's just a summary of somone else's work. .... All that being said, I'd have major issues if the government did step in.— still_independent
- jmc: if membership is rising at a newspaper's online home, and at the same time their paid subscriptions are falling, it's kind of hard to blame the reporting or writing since it's the same articles. Oh, and since a majority of ad revenue comes from real estate, auto, and classified (help wanted) ads, I'm sure the economy has nothing to do with it either. All newspapers, whether regional or local, conservative or liberal, are hurting. Maybe it's a dying medium, and should be allowed to pass away, but the tired old "it's because they're too liberal" has nothing to do with it.— still_independent
- jwad56: Obamarapture? Good one! However, I wasn't commenting on whether I agreed or disagreed with what he said. My comment focused on HOW he communicates. The President is reaching out to the voting public in a wide variety of ways --- Leno, Town Halls, Press Conferences, etc. Presidents are supposed to do this, especially in crises. This guy is out-Reaganing Reagan. Judging by the various ratings he gets while on TV, most Americans currently don't agree with you.— yobill626
- "The President is reaching out to the voting public in a wide variety of ways" - but if what he says makes no sense, how is that an ability to communicate?— jwad56
- No one is rooting for your death, Richard. Because you cannot see your own self-inflicted wounds, you are in this position. Your arrogance has caused this. You need to change your ways to become objective, fair and balanced (like Fox News). Your whine can be summed up as: "It is not our fault we have alienated half the population with our rigged and bogus journalism and are run by uncompetitive unions who think it is 1965".— CD75
- No way the Inquirer helped take down Fumo! They are part of the liberal-baised media! As it's been pointed out numerous times (and today by yobill), newspapers only try to take down fine up-standing conservatives. Stop lying to us Mr. Polman.— James TL
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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