Newspaper Bailout Begins | Hacker News Reader

Newspaper Bailout Begins

businessinsider.com

24 pointsmjfern13 comments

I'll post the same comment here as I did at the article:

Excusing reporting sources (newspaper or otherwise) from taxes isn't the right thing to do. Non-profit organizations are already gearing up and filling the void that for-profit organizations will leave. I look squarely at NPR and PBS. Maybe the print writers should seek to create something as well known and respected as these organizations. They would be tax free and have more respect.

I don't really have a problem with a state government giving tax cuts to newspapers, as long as there are no strings attached. Tax cuts aren't necessarily a bailout. If a government gives money or a tax cut to the press in exchange for journalistic favors, then we have a problem. The best way to prevent that is for the government to not give newspapers money. Newspapers receiving ad money from the government is pushing the boundaries of a free press.

I disagree with the President's opinion that newspapers are necessary going forward. Matt Drudge and the Politico have both shown that the functions many newspapers serve (at the national level) can be done better in other ways.

If the government even gets to say who the press is then the door is wide open to corruption. You don't - and shouldn't - need any interaction with or permission or support from the government at all to publish. Those that do cannot help but be beholden if not to the present government then at least to the principle of a state-sanctioned press. That's Communism.

The government already gets to decide who has access to the important areas (Whitehouse press corp for example). No one is saying that you need permission to publish, only that established journalism outlets would get a tax break. You would still be welcome to take on the NY Times with your blog.

Matt Drudge does very little reporting (a few times a year there is an exclusive and frequently it's still on the backs of actual reporters), he just points to the work other people have done. A valuable service, but he's more akin to an editor than an actual publication.

You have a point with Politico, but they make most of their money from print (ads in their DC based news paper and syndication with papers around the country).

This might very well influence a lot of people here:

As newspapers go away, a shrinking supply of ad inventory will drive up ad prices, rewarding innovative new media.

I don't buy it. Ad supply is just users x time. There's no reason to think that this is changing.

I'm not sure I can call this a "bailout". There's a certain level of efficacy implied in a "bailout", I think, which is why it generally involves a check of some sort. Cutting taxes for newspapers is not going to be terribly effective, though; their problems are so much deeper than that. This is a solution to the problem "Newspapers are being taxed into oblivion", but that's not the problem.

The difference between newspapers and the other things that have needed bailouts is that the newspapers were failing hard before the crisis hit. (Well, we're [stupidly] propping up some other failures too, but not on the same scale as newspapers, where it was already obvious the entire industry was doomed even in 2007. Or earlier.)

It's probably appropriate to call it the Newspaper Bailout No. 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_operating_agreement

You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, that's how it works in politics. The Obama administration knows where its bread is buttered. Imagine the howls of outrage tho' if the Bush administration had given tax breaks to Fox News.

Some tidbits about Rupert Murdoch: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/07/b122948.html%...

Is it a bad thing that there is a media outlet that has a different slant then the other outlets? Everyone's biased and few (if any) avoid it in their journalism.

Other than the bit about tax breaks in New York and being too zealous in support of China it doesn't look all that bad. What did you expect.

Everything at the end about tax havens and loop holes is no matter. Either he's doing something illegal and the government should do something, or the law needs to be changed.

Edit: changed 'someone' to 'the government'.

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