Connecticut lawmaker petitions for newspaper bailout

A fellow JRC survivor passed this along and I figured this would spark some discussion on the board. Also, it's nice to see that "media experts predict that 2009 will be the year that newspapers will 'die.'" :-[

Connecticut Lawmaker Petitions for Newspaper Bailout

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475046,00.html

Following the government's billion dollar bailout to the automobile and financial sectors, a Connecticut lawmaker is petitioning to save the local newspaper, Reuters reported.

Frank Nicastro, who represents Connecticut's 79th assembly district, is asking the state government to do something to salvage The Bristol Press, a paper that may fold within days, along with The Herald. The papers' publisher, Journal Register, is in danger of being crushed under millions of dollars in debt, and can't afford to keep them open.

"The media is a vitally important part of America," Nicastro said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations.

But, relying on the government has raised ethical questions for the press, whose role has been to operate without government influence and media experts predict that 2009 will be the year that newspapers will "die" in wake of the financial meltdown.

Former Miami Herald Editor Tom Fiedler says that a democracy has an obligation to preserve a free press.

"I truly believe that no democracy can remain healthy without an equally healthy press," said Fiedler, now dean of Boston University's College of Communication. "Thus it is in democracy's interest to support the press in the same sense that the human being doesn't hesitate to take medicine when his or her health is threatened."

 

I could have sworn I've seen this posted before...

Having said that, the newspaper industry needs more than an infusion of cash, ala the financial industry or the Big Three. It needs substantive reforms to the way it does business. Even then, it's still be too late for those of us who are unemployed journalists.