Media Bailout Sparks Debate

Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press.

Nicastro represents Connecticut's 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[blueskybigstar]

News organizations need to have their investigative reporting sections subsidized. Don't believe that this crisis was not all created because of an inadequate and/or complicit media with the crooks in power.

[MuchMadness]

Newspapers will survive, but a lot of web sites will fail.

[yorkville7]

letting the media be 97 percent j/e/w/ owned and then wondering why all our wars benefit them in the m.e. is ridiculous

[richchaplin]

I really don't know what the solution is. If we "let them die" then the only ones that survive will be the ones promoting the same (profitable) propaganda that has harmed this country for most of the past 60 years. But subsidies create conflicts. It's bad enuf that the WH Press Cops sucks up to Perino, et al to keep their access; subsidies would just exacerbate the problem. It forces journalists into the equivalent of telling your boss his breath stinks.

I suppose a National Endowment of the Press would be one potentially workable model, with a lump sum going to the "NEP", to be doled out by an independant advisory board heavy on peer review.

[research]

"Paper" news is obsolete.

[Gumby123]

Sorry, I don't think it's a good idea to create a State sponsored 'Pravda' rag using our hard earned tax dollars.

[fishgirl26]

As the girlfriend of a laid off journalist, I can say that this has been a long time coming. Low wages, companies focusing more on ad revenue than the quality of journalism that is being produced.

[toocoldout]

I think we all saw it coming

[Ozarks]

Your article states:
"That is because publisher Journal Register, in danger of being crushed under hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, says it cannot afford to keep them open anymore".

someone should ask how the Journel Register got itself in enormous debt. I bet somebody like Redman , Murdock or Zell used Journal Register assets and balance sheet to buy up more media and leveraged out the Journel Register to "hundreds of millions of debt". The question to ask is how and who got the Journel Register into so much debt. Bet it is one of the Big MSM conglomerates. Let it go down the tubes with the rest of the MSM , they don't report news just government propaganda.

[toocoldout]

Yes. You would expect them to better business men.

[Tenley]

Matt Drudge has a personal stake in seeing that SOMEONE out there is still producing news headlines and links that he can steal, so if anyone should bailout the media it's him. Way past time for him to pay up for the content he uses and makes millions off of each year. Just saying. It goes, he goes down with it.

[toocoldout]

Matt Drudge is not a reliable source in my opinion.

[johnnynyc]

So does this site.

[toocoldout]

don't bite the hand that feeds you

[Tenley]

Awful idea. Any restrictio­ns/account­ability put on the taxpayer money used to bail out the press immediately would be trumpeted as censorship -- a true First Amendment government infringement on the freedom of the press. Ironic, I know, except it's true, it happens whenever government tries to raise taxes of any sort on newspapers. No. It absolutely woud bite the taxpayer and public in the a**.

[toocoldout]

Good point.

[yorkville7]

are you tired of being embarrassed watching your presidential candidates stumble over themselves trying to justify i-srael terror because they are afraid of a media blitz against them if they dont....they are not afraid of losing the tiny je-wish vote they are afraid of the je-wish media destroying their campaign

[toocoldout]

Once elected politicians must take responsibility for their power. They can't blame the media for pressuring them into voting for the Iraq war.

[yorkville7]

just look at the propaganda of the me conflict and how we are being pushed into war with iran for 2 years and you can see its a arm of a foreign government owned 97 percent by the chosen people

[toocoldout]

But every ethnic group would like to see policy that favours their ethnic group. So while wars with Iraq and Iran may benefit a foreign government, some Americans support that government and have the influence to get American foreign policy to support it to.

[Nonamnesiac]

The media stopped a long time ago. All we have now are a bunch relatively uninformed, somewhat stupid parrots who blather out corporate truisms 24 hours per day. They have no regard for the truth, the big picture, their role in informing the citizenry of what's happening. They work hard to convince hard working people of whatever the media's stupid distraction of the day is and fight daily with equally lowlife politicians as to who will set the corporate agenda for the people, the media wing or the oil wing. They intentionally refuse to cover things that interest the people in order to push the corporate line.

So little is lost if the media goes.

[yorkville7]

its not a corporate agenda its a je-wish agenda

[toocoldout]

But every ethnic group has an agenda to support their co-ethnics. You can't blame one ethnic group just because they are especially good at advancing that agenda.

[Ray46]

A really bad idea to bail out the media. The media bias their stories with anyone in power and not run any stories against anyone in power to guarantee their future access to bailout money.

Do we bail out neutral, conservative. or liberal media? Probably will depend on who has control of the presidency, house and senate.

[toocoldout]

Excellent point.

[trudem2]

No bail outs for current media and journalists. They have consistently FAILED in their mission to keep a watchful eye on government and inform the people.

Let them wither on the vine.....then let's start anew.

[toocoldout]

It's not their job to watch the government. They are a business. Their job is to give customers what they want to read