The newspaper bailout countdown clock: It’s here!
Back in October, I joked that it wouldn’t be long before the junk-bond New York Times was lining up for a government bailout. Last month, I followed up with the launch of the Newspaper Bailout Countdown Clock in a post about Tribune Media’s financial woes.
Well, it has come to pass: Democrats have proposed a newspaper bailout in Connecticut:
Seven legislators from the area served by The Bristol Press and The Herald in New Britain today wrote to the state Department of Economic and Community Development to ask for its help in preventing the closure of the newspapers.
We’ll have more on this breaking news later, but for now, here’s the letter.
It’s also encouraging today to see that Jim Romenesko’s daily email roundup of media news for the Poynter Institute, which the whole industry reads, featured at the top of its list the story about Gov. Jodi Rell and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s willingness to lend a hand to the effort to save the papers. At the very least, it’s better to go down shouting than to slip quietly into the night.
They’ve only just begun. Not only are the newspaper moochers trying to argue that their services are so “vital” that they deserve taxpayer handouts, they are also arguing that they need federal newspaper subscription subsidies to help make voters smarter.
Snort.
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We subsidize the “arts”, “public television”, and “liberal talk radio”, so why not subsidize another liberal propaganda machine?
/sarc
My job is vital too – I’m raising two kids to be strong, independent conservatives who can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. When do I get mine?
Sometimes the stupidity of people makes me want to scream.
While we’re at it, let’s bail out the horse and carriage manufacturers!
Think of all those poor carriage workers thrown out of work…!
Okay, when is it sonofdys turn? I mean if we are so fired up to bankrupt this country, can I at least get my house paid off first?
If your services are so vital why is it that you need a bailout? I guess vital doesn’t mean what I think it does.
#5, well that fish isn’t going to wrap itself you know. Think of all the bird cages that will not be lined…
It’s for the birds! Bwahahahaa!
Parakeets and canaries of the world unite! We must protect out birdcages against loss of vital newsprint bird poo collection sheets! A bird poo bailout is instrumental to the health and well-being of millions of our feathered brothers!
Seriously, is this bailout feeding frenzy going to get any more stupid? Why doesn’t somebody “just say no”? What kind of example are we setting here? What kind of precedent are we creating for the future: Waste all the money you want and never have to worry about being responsible for your actions?
Can we start a clock for CNN? It probably won’t be too much longer before they become such a “vital public service” that they need bailout protection, too.
Why should companies have greater claims to my earned money, via the government, than I do?
If the newspapers were doing their job of informing instead of indoctrinating, they would have more readers.
Agreed – that line about keeping voters informed is a hoot! I mean, if the recent presidential election is any indication of the vitality of their services in educating (read: miseducating) voters, then why did President Obamapelosireid win?
No taxpayer bailouts for the M$M!
30, Sonofdy, they’re also handy for starting campfires, punishing bad dogs, swatting flys, etc.
So, why don’t we just get a roll of blank paper thrown on our porch everymorning?
Well, how about a roll of comic strips. That’s about all I read anyway.
And they are probably just as acurate.
My parrot would be in deep doo doo if it wasn’t for the print media.
The federal subscription subsidies worry me even more than this story. What is this nation coming to?
Reminds of the argument, “When we run out of whale oil the earth will go dark.”
I have not subscribed to a newspaper in over 6 years and am better informed than ever.
If the newspaper industry goes under, think of all the kids who won’t get to spread silly putty on them. Making that transfer is pretty sweet.
It’s a damn shame.
Not one dime. Let them sink.
The actual “reporting” from various blogs is more vital to me than any newspaper.
Newspaper, TV and Radio are strickly opinion avenues any more.
Just let ALL these sucking leaches go down the drain.
We are in a lot of trouble with these criminals in the WH.
Let them fail! Newspapers are yesterday’s news, with 24 hr cable news and the internet, they are obsolete. If they want to survive they will need to charge enough money for ads that they can give away the papers for free.
Or perhaps go the way of horse and buggies…
We have a local newspaper that rarely reports the news. I read it primarily for the obituaries. The truth died before the last election.
How about cobblers and typewriter repairmen?
When will they get theirs?
When the dem’s start passing gun control laws, will the firearms industry get a bailout?
Is that a stupid question?
Newspapers are dead. They are no longer relevant. Why read OLD NEWS? It’s not even news.
It was INCOMPETENCE, GREED and STUPIDITY that got all the other BAILOUTS started, why are NEWSPAPERS any different??? Many of them, the ULTRA LIBS mostly are EXTREMELY guilty of this… They refuse to change EDITORIAL POLICY, in spite of LOSSES… Fits right into the mold of all the rest of the BAILOUTS…
Here’s the truth: no one wants to pay Obama’s taxes. So everyone is suddenly broke. Better a tincup than a tax attorney.
A free press is to be free from government, not a Pravda clone.
This is what happens when companies/lobby groups buy influence…
They get ROI.
IMHO, the only good thing to come from the New York Times: The crossword. That and the Sudoku, TV schedule and coupons are the only reason I get a paper. And only on weekends.
Heh. Fortunately for the fishwrap industry, we are now entering the Age of Entitlement where bailout-mania reigns supreme.
But to answer your question, who knows? The frenzy may even spur a resurrection of these long-dead industries, just for the sheer joy of bailing them out.
Now, lookee here, folks! I just paper trained two sweet little terriers on my neighbor’s Dallas Morning News. How are they supposed to do their doody if we can’t help the newspooper industry?
This story isn’t funny. Will newspapers report that they are beneficiaries of government subsidies whenever they publish a story on government and politics?
A subsidy would be an extreme violation of the First Amendment. Church and State issues would be trivial compared to Press and State issues.
According to paper manufacturer Boise Cascade, a cord of wood produces nearly 90,000 sheets of paper or 2,700 copies of a 35-page newspaper!
Save the forest and let the newspapers fail.
It’s a greenhouse effect thing.
The sound you hear is the libs heads exploding at the conundrum.
If we had had this Congress a hundred years ago, the buggy whip manufacturers would still be around as a state-subsidized industry.
That explains alot. Is that could identify or cared to identify?
I can understand their thinking on this. If you’re already in the tank for the government, why not be wholly subsidized and remove all pretense?
What the heck are high level conversations?
These activities will not make you smarter; better informed perhaps.
I’ve read that the bailouts are approaching $6.3 trillion dollars. If you divided that money up and “loaned” it for 20 years at low interest rates to the 50 million Americans with the best credit scores, it would be $126,000 each. Instead, we are giving it to the corporations and people with the worst credit scores.
We.Are.Doomed.
It doesn’t make sense to give a bailout to those who are paying for said bailout. /sarc
As the bard of the bumper says, “Keep working! Millions on welfare [the auto, banking, mortgage, credit, and department store industries] depend on you.”
This bailout goes against two basic tenets of the liberal belief system.
1. Letting these newspapers die would allow more trees to be saved. Dumpster Muffin will be able to complete her college education instead of living in the trees flinging poo.
2. This is evolution in practice. You must not interfere with evolution. If you allow human interference, then you weaken the argument against man made global warming.
On December 1st, 2008 at 11:49 am, b-cat said:
These are conversations performed with one’s nose in the air, offended by the smell of the masses.
Will this be something new? Or will they just continue to mislead the voters by their well practiced technique of tabloid exposés against those who are on the wrong side of political issues?
There are some newspapers that are vital to our education and understanding, WSJ, IBD and CFP – then there are great pubs in Canada, England and Australia that still actually deliver news.
As for the rest they are just moochers and looters – let the dead tree society die.
The ‘Book of Useless Information” by Noel Botham
one Sunday edition of the New York Times consumes about 75,000 trees
Dead trees and a dead media.
It’s cheaper right now to buy a share in The New York Times than it is to buy the Sunday edition of the New York Times. Doesn’t that just make you smile?
There is some real concern that any news organization that takes Bailout money will be beholden to the will of the Gov’t. The papers think that is just fine right now with a Lib gov’t coming to power, but have they thought about the future and that governments change? Now, The New York Times is already Pravda (I have called it that for years now), but the idiology of the editors of a news organization is one thing, having the government’s hand involved is a real problem for the fighters of free speech.
How many carbon offset credits does the print media need if it uses all those damn trees?
I guess I’d better leave it up to those really smart people in Washington/sarc
Glad you put the “/sarc” there, FM. All the RALLY smart people stay as far away as possible from Washington, DC, AKA the world’s largest open-air asylum. And therein lies the REAL problem. We need the smart ones to be involved in government, but they’re too smart to, so you know where that leaves us.
Make that REALLY – and I really did preview it. My eyes just went dyslexic, I guess
Why not a Government bailout for the Leftard Media?
This just makes it official that The Ministry of Truth is OWNED by the Feds.
“Doubleplusgood” says Winston Smith.
My Citroen Cockatoo loves the want ads, oh yeah and also the front page but only if there is a recent photo of a president elect or a house or senate majority leader on it
If any newspaper accepts a government subsidy, then they have no right to squawk when the government tells them what to print and what not to print.
The first amendment protection of a free press does not apply to government employees.
Government “ownership” of the press, even for a paper nobody is reading (hence the need for a bailout) is Communism’s “nose in the tent”. If these politicians want to help the paper, why don’t they invest their own money into it.
Hey – we haven’t had mayonnaise for two months – and being deployed, it makes a difference when you try and make a tuna sandwich! Can we get a bailout while serving overseas in Africa ? This is ridiculous…
The newspaper industry’s struggles are a direct result of technological improvements. I recently cancelled my subscription to my hometown newspaper. Although I love the printed word (I’m an English teacher!) I could no longer justify spending money to read news stories a day after they were available online for free. My local newspaper is also very poorly written with numerous errors. In a free-market economy, these things happen. Times change and need for certain products disappears. It may be sad and may cause some to feel nostalgic, but it is a fact of life.
In a nation where access to current national and world events is one click and 3 seconds away. . .and in which we know the majority of people are driven by convenience and instant gratification. . .
How does it make any sense to bail out print newspapers?
From the perspective of common sense and what is “good for America,” I can’t see how it makes sense…however, from the perspective of those whose sole aim in their miserable lives is to control others and fill them with propaganda, it makes perfect sense…government ownership/control of the print media would be the legitimization, so to speak, of the end of the free press. Although we all know that the LSM is “in the tank” for Obama and most are admitted (biased) libs, we can still use the power of the purse to affect them if we choose. However, if the gov’t. is propping up the fishwrap, then there is no longer the market-based control of consumer demand to curtail the most egregious offenders. Whatever the gov’t. wants us to hear/not hear, will be filtered, and with our tax $$ to boot. Nice, huh?
I think if we told newspapers (like the BOregonian) that they could choose between presenting completely fair and balanced views on their editorial page or going bankrupt, they’d choose the latter. That’s why I subscribe to the Sunday paper strictly for the coupons and ads.