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Senator Proposes Nonprofit Status For Newspapers
The AP is reporting that a senator has introduced legislation that would allow struggling newspapers to operate as nonprofits, similar to the way public broadcasting works. "[Sen. Benjamin] Cardin [D-Md.] introduced a bill that would allow newspapers to choose tax-exempt status. They would no longer be able to make political endorsements, but could report on all issues including political campaigns. Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax-exempt, and contributions to support coverage could be tax deductible. Cardin said in a statement that the bill is aimed at preserving local newspapers, not large newspaper conglomerates. ... The head of the newspaper industry's trade group called the bill a positive step."
I think this is a really great idea. It forces them to be a little less biased, and it keeps well-written articles available. The natural beauty of print is that it's costly to publish, compared to digitally. This tends to force the writing to be polished, which online articles, blogs specifically, never achieve. There's just something nice about reading an article someone else has proofread before you. It's jarring to read blogs that have foregone this, as you tend to notice the little grammatical mistakes everywhere. Or worse, it's syntactically correct, but semantically rubbish.
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The problem is, the vast majority of newspapers are owned by giant conglomerates. Gannett and McClatchy just going to say, "Oh hey, lets dissolve!"? Don't think the CEO's with their 7 figure salaries are gonna get behind that one.
Anyway, even the papers that are already non-profit are taking it in the ass. Look at St. Pete. The industry has to successfully make a revenue transition from 1 medium to another without going bankrupt in the process, and it doesn't help that the web sucks for revenue. Look at all these huge, popular web 2.0 services that still haven't found a way to make a profit. The Ad revenue pie is the same size, but way too many people want a piece, and you don't get that natural geographic advantage that newspapers have traditionally enjoyed.
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The two primary costs of operating a newspaper are (a) paying the reporters, and (b) printing papers. We all know subscriptions are down and that the medium is evolving so that only the largest national papers can afford to print copies. Also, readership in local areas doesn't really demand printed copies as much as they want access to the information. For example, one thing local reporters cover is town council meetings and police reports. Thanks largely to digital search mechanisms, it's way easier to grab this information from the pages of a reputable townie news service website than to sift through a printed paper.
So, I see the costs of printing a newspaper disappearing over the years and that leaves only the cost of paying reporters. My question is... what's to stop the small newspapers from firing the majority of their staff and operating like Internet newspapers with self-moderated volunteer staffs? All it'd take is to deploy Slashcode, buy-in from town administrators and business owners, and a critical mass of town residents to begin operating a near-free town news service.
Meanwhile, I see "tradition newspapers" as an occupation disappearing, regardless of tax exempt status or not.
And look at it this way... the newspaper profit model has been largely based on ad-revenue for so long that a simple "local" implementation of Craigslist could easily facilitate job postings, garage sales, and local advertising so that tiny, tiny charges for these would pay the small staff that's needed to maintain the hardware and post the most interesting stories on the mainpage.
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Why not just Newspapers?
Why not TV?
Blogs?
Magazines?
What is the Press these days?
I am all for the press not endorsing candidates but I just don't see that happening.
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To be fair, though, the one major example I have of donation supported media (National Public Radio) is remarkably balanced, especially in it its coverage of the ongoing economic troubles. At the very least they've not been more unbalanced in any direction than privately funded media.
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Presumably the goal is to preserve newspapers as a necessary source of information gathering. The idea is that in the age of the internet, we face a free-rider problem and fundamental news gathering is less profitable. Ostensibly journalists are performing a public service.
But how well this proposed solution will address the real problem? There are lots of right-wing newspapers that are not profitable but they have dedicated corporate sponsors so they keep operating. Consider the Washington Times, or the Pittsburgh Tribune. If we let newspapers be non-profits we are giving a huge tax-break to Richard Mellon Scaife, and Rupert Murdoch, and Sun Myung Moon. All of the money these guy pump into their right-wing propaganda machines will be tax-deductible.
I want to save newspapers too, but this proposal will incentivize more propaganda than it will actual news.