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

[IndependentDEvoter]

The problem is apparent right from the concept: a Dem politician wanting to bail out a liberal newspaper. Next, they will want to bail out the heavily biased NYT. Not only should we let them fail as obsolete media, we should shut off all taxpayer dollars for the left-leaning NPR as well. Not because it leans left, just because it leans at all, in either direction. I would say the same thing if someone suggested bailing out any conservative media outlet. Let the media fend for themselves.

[Tenley]

NPR doesn't receive taxpayer money, the name National Public Radio is just a name like American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is just a name and not the official/national/American/publicly funded government media.

[toocoldout]

Are you sure? I thought I heard Dennis Miller say NPR is at least partly tax funded

[AdV2k1]

NO WAY , NO HOW.

How many forests are torn down every day for stupid newspaper ?

really now. Websites are the NOW and FUTURE. It's 2009 stop reading your newspaper and go online already.

[Tenley]

Yeah, but when there are no newspapers producing original content anymore, who will Drudge steal his news headlines and links from? You'll see what? One four-sentence "exclusive" on his page a month (which invariably will prove grossly incorrect)?

[johnnynyc]

The same is true of this site.

Just look at all the links to the NY TImes.

[toocoldout]

The problem with on-line is there are so many anonymous people who can say anything they want without accountability. While the traditional media is constantly being duped by false stories on a daily basis, at least they put their good name on the line. In cybeland anything goes, everyone is anonymous and folks are vicous.

[bobtr900]

These MSM's have been pimping Free Market Capitalism since the days of Reagan. So let them die by what they have been preaching. Not one thin dime of taxpayer dollars for any of them.

And given their cover-up and lies for the Bushies they are totally guilty of abandoning the American people. How can any of us voters be expected to make any decisions when the MSM only presents the one side of the story that the 59 million who voted for GWB want to hear. NBC/MSNBC only allowed Olbermann on the air in August of 2006. And Maddow got on the air during the Summer of 2008. So let them all go down with Rupert Murdoch and Fox. They all belong in the abyss of their own creation.

IOW, they cut off the voices of the 59-240 million of us who do not support the 'culture of death for corporate profits' that is the hallmark of the Republican Americans. So let them buy the MSM newspapers and magazines.

And if some state governments are about to give these MSM outlets some tax breaks let them know that is not acceptable because it only increases the tax burden on the average working family man who is now very likely out of a job thanks to Reagan's no regulation and deregulation politics of endless greed.

What are we supposed to do, pay out our tax dollars to hear O'Reilly, Hannity and Limbaugh scream their hate at us.

[opines]

Bailing out newspapers (or any media entity) with public funds won't fly. The question of which one(s) ends the discussion. Picking ones to save that favored the dominant party and starving the ones that opposed it
is an abuse that couldn't be guarded against.

[cayuse]

We use to have two paper in Seattle (1 DEM 1 REP). Now we have one, at least they print the same Sunday Addition?. In those day when the Media gave you information. When they were free and not gonglomerated,

Now they pass the information on to the Banksters, Corporations and Administration to get rich and GIVE the public PROPAGANDA from the 3 just mentioned.

How else can you support Israel Genecide and Bailouts after 8 years of the highest PROFIT in the UNIVERSE and then issue CASH equal to the HIGHEST PROFIT once again in Baiouts to these crooks

Not unlike having the people build GREEN ENERGY facilites then pay for natures free Green Energy at HIGHEST prices.

While the rich and monopoly corporations get rich with Tax incentive Investment and RISK FREE

[cayuse]

Holy Cow Batman!

These conglomerated Media giants that have been feeding us the DARK SIDE opinions of the rich and stingy.

Maybe we should have voted for Bin Laden?

[WhiteDelyte]

what nobody wants to buy 140 pages of ad space anymore?? shocking!

[djgonebad]

YOUR RIGHT ON!!!

GIVE REAL INVESTIGATIVE NEWS A TRY MSM, AND MAYBE SOME OF THIS MESS COULD'VE STOPPED BEFORE OUR NATION FELL TO THE NEO-CONS BOTTOM-LESS PIT!!!

[owiseone]

No bailout for the media, which sold us George W. Bush, fed us the Neo-con agenda, and now wants us to fund it, so we will pay to be fed more of the same?

We've already let the Neo-cons nationalize our banks; are we going to let them nationalize our media too?

I say let those flailing crash and burn. Honest reporting will rise from the ashes.

[SangZe]

If newspaper go under, what can I use to wrap up what's left after I've cleaned my fish? Stock certificates don't have the right texture.

[toocoldout]

LOL! At least news paper are good for something. As long as you don't make the mistake of reading them, as they are full of lies and hoaxes.

[MaybeMilo]

Well now wait a minute - the printed media have been shrinking for some time due to brutal competition from electronic media. This has been going on for years, and is not solely related to the meltdown. Yes, many publishers may have lost invested capital during this most recent collapse, but is that what's primarily put them in danger? Or have they just become obsolete to the rank and file reader? Perhaps they're simply going the way of the manual typewriter.

They can definitely be forces for good in reporting, but need this be a potential only products of the printed media enjoy?

[toocoldout]

Good point. All traditional media has been shrinking as the web looms larger.

[StevieRae]

For all those ready to bury the printed press, I would encourage investment and donations to on-line services like Snopes.comm" to help filter out fiction from fact.

Consider the perpetual ty

[toocoldout]

We need a source that has credibility. The traditional media especially newspapers has been duped so many times they can no longer be considered journalists, but rather entertainers.

[StevieRae]

For all those ready to bury the printed press, I would encourage investment and donations to on-line services like Snopes.comm" to help filter out fiction from fact.

Consider the perpetual type e-mails and stories about Obama during the campaign; a well orchestrated Internet "dump" of repetitive mis-information will take on a "life" of its own and become perceived truth and fact. How will we protected ourselves from those who want to effect government policy, not in the best interest of everyone?

Also, how will this new emerging "fourth" estate protect us from our government, by bloggers who will "report" the news by never leaving their keyboard?

[toocoldout]

Other better sources need to emerge.

[voltaire11]

As a fervent supporter of freedom of the press, I am against any sort of bailout for the newspapers. Accepting any sort of bailout jeopardizes the press' ability to be objective when covering the government. I feel badly that newspapers are going by the wayside, but that is the way the cookie crumbles.

[toocoldout]

We either believe in free market, survival of the smartest, or we don't.

[johnnynyc]

Obviously we don't and we never have really.

[LeonBNJ]

Few people have the time to read newspapers anymore. The internet, TV, and radio has gradually over the years and with their ability to give as it happens coverage has hurt them too. Now you have fewer stores (espeically major department stores) that advetise, job and car advertising has shifted to the internet and other methods cutting into newpapers' income. Many of these newspaper companies got into mergers and acquisitions using too easy debt no longer sustainable. As others have suggested, it would be bad for governments to subsidise newspapers due to fears of further distortions of coverage, especially as to local governments.

[SinisterK9]

People have time to read. We are not in some magical generation that has no time to do anything. We simply want everything right now now now.

That said, if the paper can't make it, let it go under.

[Gasparilla]

Everyone is too busy texting and talking on their cell phones about a lot of nonsense. It's like your day isn't complete unless you've heard every single detail of someone else's boring day.

[toocoldout]

Papers are physically too hard to read, they way they're folded and the pages are so huge. Magazines are better.

[Gasparilla]

"too hard to read"? It's a lot easier than trying to read one online. One specific article, yes. But the whole paper, no.

[Gasparilla]

The problem is the debt that most of these companies ran up buying each other. I think there is still a market for newspapers, they're still profitable, and still needed for things like local news. If there is not print paper, then you are unlikely to get local coverage online. If the companies go bankrupt and the papers can keep publishing somehow, that's fine. Let the shareholders punish management.