Slashdot Mirror
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."
Why not just make everything tax exempt? Then everyone would be more profitable, not just the failed buggy-whip companies.
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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Drudge is 21st century news, adapt or die.
In case you didn't notice, Drudge and his host of imitators are news aggregators, not reporters. The stories they link too have to come from somewhere. If all the old line, stale, MSM news outlets that people love to bitch about closed up shop, the blogosphere would have precious little to do.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I don't think balanced reporting is a myth, it just doesn't seem to exist anymore. It's supposed to be a news column, not an editorial. To use your example about reporting on the Democratic convention, why would it be so hard to report who was there, sequence of events, and what the person said. whether you agree with it or not shouldn't play any part in doing your job as a news reporter. What one side considers a joke the other side considers an insult..example being the 'lipstick on a pig' comment during the election. The quote should be in the NEWS article and the editorial should give the viewpoint that it was insulting or whatever they want to say. and yes it can be a natural bias that creeps through but then shouldn't the editor be demanding the reporters stick to the facts. if not then what good are they.
The thing is, if you give up trying to be unbiased, you get Fox News.
Even if it is a mostly unattainable goal, it's better to try and deliver an unbiased product.
I do admit, it'd be nice if a reporter would be open about their bias right from the start. The nice thing about the web (if any papers transitioned to it correctly, which, of course, none have) is that you could make that sort of information available in a reporters bio. Trusting your news source is important; nobody has time to fact check all their news.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
You have to realize how desperate the newspaper industry has become. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed their last paper edition last week. They're just a web site now, and they distribute their news via Twitter. That's how far down they've come. The Detroit Free Press only prints on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday now. The San Francisco Chronicle may go next.
And those were once Great Metropolitan Dailies. Little papers go under every day.
Nothing is really replacing them. Blogs are mostly punditry; few have paid reporters. If anything, the future may be TV news presented via the Web. TV news has historically been time-limited, but that's not a Web problem.
Dude, their slogan is "Fair and Balanced." I admit they're not trying to be unbiased, but they are definitely trying to pretend like they're unbiased, which is the worst of all worlds.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I can't resist: that's because reality has a well-known liberal bias. ;)
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
An unbiased news report might look like this:
Politician A today unveiled his plans for [some program]. The major parts of this program are [Part A],[Part B],[Part C]. The new legislation will be offered in the legislature next week.
A biased new article is more like this:
Politician A, whose approval ratings are at record lows, today unveiled his plans for [some program], which has been is blasted by [some hyperventilating critic] as [some affront to any number of fringe groups] . The major parts of this [controversial] program are [Part A],[Part B],[Part C]. The new legislation will be offered in the legislature next week but faces widespread opposition by [a minority of lunatics].
Note that there would generally be several paragraphs detailing the supposed failings of the three parts and featuring criticism from various people who have not even seen the legislation.
I suspect that if you are paying attention, you will notice that articles of the latter nature are more prevalent in the media today than.
I care less about the bias than the approach to the news, to the guests, to the context.
So you are OK with the condescending, arrogant attitudes that are typical of NPR?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.