Obama open to newspaper bailout bill
 

The president said he is "happy to look at" bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.

"I haven't seen detailed proposals yet, but I'll be happy to look at them," Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade in an interview.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced S. 673, the so-called "Newspaper Revitalization Act," that would give outlets tax deals if they were to restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. That bill has so far attracted one cosponsor, Cardin's Maryland colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D).

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had played down the possibility of government assistance for news organizations, which have been hit by an economic downturn and dwindling ad revenue.

In early May, Gibbs said that while he hadn't asked the president specifically about bailout options for newspapers, "I don't know what, in all honesty, government can do about it."

Obama said that good journalism is "critical to the health of our democracy," but expressed concern toward growing tends in reporting -- especially on political blogs, from which a groundswell of support for his campaign emerged during the presidential election.

"I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said.

Obama open to newspaper bailout bill - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Print is the way of the dead. Textbooks are being phased out by 2020. Get used to digital.

I'm all for this.

After it passes, the President can turn his attention to the Telegraph Rescue Act of 2009, and cap it all off with a cash infusion for the reading lamps and candles industry---which has been relegated to mere ornamentation.

Seriously, technology changes. Yes; the newspaper is an icon of Americana past. But, print media is dying--and if we haven't learned by now when it's time to let an industry go gently into that good night, we never will.

As if these papers are not biased enough as it is. Are we to think we would actually get critical reporting from a newspaper funded by the government?

Good grief.