Sen. Ben Cardin Wastes Time On Newspaper Industry
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Ben Cardin. My senator, Ben Cardin. Good guy. Bad move.
Struggling newspapers should be allowed to operate as nonprofits similar to public broadcasting stations, Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., proposed Tuesday.
Cardin introduced a bill that would allow newspapers to choose tax-exempt status. They would no longer be able to make political endorsements, but could report on all issues including political campaigns.
Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax-exempt, and contributions to support coverage could be tax deductible.
Cardin said in a statement that the bill is aimed at preserving local newspapers, not large newspaper conglomerates.
“We are losing our newspaper industry,” said Cardin. “The economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy.”
The newspaper is dying. It is dying due to its failure to innovate. It is also dying due to its inability to put the interests of its readers above its advertisers, not realizing that a milquetoast paper afraid to upset the apple cart will turn people off and lead to lowered ad revenues.
Senator, these papers don’t need any additional help from the government. If they choose to go private and become foundations they may do so, but they do not need a single hand from the government to do so. They are not special. They don’t rise to the level of the sort of industry – like finance or automotive – that at least has a semi-coherent argument as to why it needs special legislation.
Senator Cardin, you’re a good guy, but this is a misguided waste of time.
22 Responses to “Sen. Ben Cardin Wastes Time On Newspaper Industry”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
I think it’s a pretty good idea, actually. Maybe it could be better, but I think it’s a good direction to go in.
So newspapers go the way of vacuum tubes, vinyl records, video tape and floppy disks as a medium for carrying information. Yeah, so?
What is the downside to allowing newspapers to operate as nonprofits? Less tax revenue? There won’t be any tax revenue if they all fold, anyway. We’re not talking government subsidies here, just a different MO in which profit will not be the motivating factor of the corporation.
Community and state newspapers provide a valuable service that is not, at present, being filled by the blogosphere – namely local reporting. I say let them go for it. If they still fail, then so be it. I’m just not seeing the problem, other than a general disdain for the medium.
He’s not really a good guy either. He’s Lieberman’s chief defender as he worked his way back into the party after attempting to do character assignation on Obama. Trust me by the time this bill made it out to light of day he and his Republican allies would have larded it up with corporate media handouts and probably some anti-blogger legislature for good measure. This kind of stuff shows how out of touch and ineffective he is as a Senator. He has nothing of value to add to the conversation and won’t be getting decent people’s vote when he’s up for reelection.
Maybe more papers would make a profit if they didn’t carry George Will’s sciencephobic columns
You’re profoundly wrong about this Willis. It’s understood you have a justifiably enraged sense of what a bad “press” can do after seeing it’s persistent abuses for years. But you’ve become so trapped by that bubble of hate that you can’t see how genuinely crucial the newspapers have been in enabling so many good things.
The newspapers reporting facts were crucial in electing Obama. If there hadn’t been those newspapers reporting facts McCain and Palin would in charge.
And you’re excited by the death of newspapers? That’s what’s called “cutting off the nose to spite the face.”
People that spout off against newspapers only empower the right wing.
“The Press” IS special, that’s why it’s given special exemptions in the Constitution. The press’s best investigative journalism still comes primarily from daily newspapers. Not bloggers, not tv, not radio, not the internet. Newspapers.
The newspaper industry is dying in large part because for decades it’s been bludgeoned, mostly by right wingers screaming “bias,” but also by many others who have some misdirected hatred for the medium.
Right wingers, especially the corporatists, are directly served by destroying independent fact checkers livelihoods.
After an independent media reporting facts is gone it’s much easier to spout lies unopposed. The last 30 years of the decline in newspaper readership is directly correlated to the rise of ignorance in this country. Which has also been correlated with the rise of the right wing in this country. By many measures all three are intricately linked: ignorant right wing ascendancy is directly linked to the decline in newspaper readership. Better informed voters vote Democratic. Period.
There are a lot of other factors for the decline of newspaper readers, sure, for instance: the corporate culture’s celebration of being ignorant. When so many people are saying that “newspapers are bad,” people stop reading newspapers.
Instead of encouraging a culture of being informed, too many jump on the bandwagon celebrating the death of a crucial component of a sustainable democratic republic: an independent press.
So Limbaugh and Willis dance on the grave of the newspapers together, as if somehow their divergent worlds will then be able to emerge once those silly journalists are put out on the streets because they didn’t “innovate” the way Craig Newmark did: by giving away everything in your house for free, just show up and take what you want!
If there had been a more vigorous, independent press many of the right wing lies that have ruled this country for the last 30 years wouldn’t have been able to wreck so much havoc. The slow death of newspapers reached a crescendo with the insane right wing policies of the last eight years.
It was only good reporting from “the press” that stemmed that tide of creepy right wing corporatism. Good newspapers and the investigative journalists they invested in were a crucial keystone in enabling that pushback. It was certainly magnified by other media outlets, but those other media outlets almost always relied on newspapers.
SERIOUS QUESTIONS WILLIS: What do you see replacing the investigative journalism that is still primarily done by newspapers?
And as for what you think might replace those newspaper’s investments in investigative journalists, why hasn’t it happened yet and why should anyone believe it will?
I agree it’s a bad idea. Journalism will continue even though it’s going through some severe growing pains right now. Newspapers are a worthless journalistic and business model ca. 2009 and deserve to die. Simple as that.
But you’ve become so trapped by that bubble of hate that you can’t see how genuinely crucial the newspapers have been in enabling so many good things.
The good things have happened in spite of the msm, not because of.
The newspapers reporting facts were crucial in electing Obama.
That was largely in thanks to alternative outlets and the people themselves. Obama was elected in spite of the MSM’s performance. The NY Times actually wrote a completely speculative article on whether Bill Clinton was sleeping around on Sec. Clinton or not.
If there hadn’t been those newspapers reporting facts McCain and Palin would in charge.
Yeah, the same papers that treated Obama’s words often with the same weight they gave to an idiot like Palin.
And you’re excited by the death of newspapers? That’s what’s called “cutting off the nose to spite the face.”
Excited by it? No. Unmoved to move heaven and earth to save a dying industry as it dies? Yes.
People that spout off against newspapers only empower the right wing.
Oh please. Ideology has nothing to do with it. The news industry has failed.
“The Press” IS special, that’s why it’s given special exemptions in the Constitution.
Actually the first amendment confers freedom of the press on us all, not the msm. It doesn’t say congress shall make no law abridging the rights of the Wall Street Journal. This is also why I’m against the shield law for journalists – why should they get protections that a blogger couldn’t?
The press’s best investigative journalism still comes primarily from daily newspapers. Not bloggers, not tv, not radio, not the internet. Newspapers.
And the best transportation at the turn of the century came from horses and not those dangerous horseless carriages.
The newspaper industry is dying in large part because for decades it’s been bludgeoned, mostly by right wingers screaming “bias,” but also by many others who have some misdirected hatred for the medium.
The paper industry is dying mostly because paper is no longer the primary medium for news in the world any more, and the newspaper industry has resisted adapting in a way that makes the MPAA and RIAA look positively progressive.
After an independent media reporting facts is gone it’s much easier to spout lies unopposed.
The papers were doing this just fine before they started closing, thank you. They were unopposed to whip up Whitewater into something that assaulted our constitution, and they were a key element in pressuring Gore to just concede to Bush.
Better informed voters vote Democratic. Period.
And yet with all those shitty papers we elected a Democratic president in historic numbers.
So Limbaugh and Willis dance on the grave of the newspapers together
Oh give me a break.
because they didn’t “innovate” the way Craig Newmark did: by giving away everything in your house for free, just show up and take what you want!
You seem to think that the concept of classified advertising was owned by the newspapers. This is just crap. That would be like newspapers suing tv news because they came up with the idea of using words to describe daily events first. Come on. Newmark saw a demand and filled it with a service. This, at its heart, is what entrepreneurship in America is all about. Newspapers could have seen the innovation Newmark was doing in San Francisco and used their strong brands to emulate him. Instead they scoffed and laughed about their fat margins and he ate their lunch. Its the American way.
The slow death of newspapers reached a crescendo with the insane right wing policies of the last eight years.
And who let those ideas get legit in the mainstream? The mainstream media itself. It wasn’t until the left fought back via blogs, thinktanks, etc. that they began getting accountable again – and in that case only because they don’t like their users regularly rising up against them in email. Its not about doing the right thing, its about placating a vocal irritant.
SERIOUS QUESTIONS WILLIS: What do you see replacing the investigative journalism that is still primarily done by newspapers?
The news organizations that get a clue about the web and begin publishing their in earnest will have the same strong impact they always did, in addition to existing web ventures and new ones that haven’t even popped up yet. As others have said, we are going from horse and buggy into the car biz with the news media and there are going to be many car manufacturers because their is a demand for it.
why hasn’t it happened yet and why should anyone believe it will?
Because the existing news infrastructure hasn’t made the leap they need to make but still have a big enough footprint that others can’t readily jump in. It will happen.
But the idea overall that we just need to do whatever we need to to prop up the existing news infrastructure is fatally flawed. It’s going to change – in America and the rest of the world it has always changed. We went from partisan pamphlets to yellow journalists to muckrakers to unbiased papers to tabloids to corporate vanilla papers and beyond. It will change, it’s going to happen, and it makes no sense to try and hold back the deluge for the sake of nostalgia.
“What do you see replacing the investigative journalism that is still primarily done by newspapers?”
Magazines. Web based outlets. Better Tv programs like 60 minutes and Frontline. Better weekly papers like the Boston Phoenix and the Village Voice.
There is no lack of demand for news, only lack of demand for newspapers. That tells me that something is wrong with the medium. Local papers still help fulfill needs for local news, however they can become weeklies or bi-weeklies. Their other content is primarily wire service reports anyway. I don’t need my local paper to tell me the score of a Rockies/Marlins game, I can get that on the web or Tv.
Oliver:
Great reply to News Reference. The only thing I would add as to why newspapers are dying and deserve to is that they did not cultivate a newer and better generation of reporters, columnists, and critics.
The same old worn out voices and poor writers dominate as they have: from George Will to Michiko Kakutani to Kenneth Turan to whatever celebrity columnist (pol, actor, singer they can get) in a desperate attempt to sell first, provide a service later.
Had they relied on service first, the customers would have stayed. They didn’t. They lost. Yawn.
I still haven’t seen any cogent argument against allowing newspapers to be run as non-profits except, “they suck.” What’s the downside, guys?
news organizations that get a clue about the web and begin publishing their in earnest will have the same strong impact they always did
I dearly hope you will be right but fervently disagree. Currently news websites still make only a fraction of what their print publications do, the print publications are what’s paying for those investigative journalists salaries. That same story might show up on the web but it got paid for through the economics of the print publication.
To push your metaphor, so far there aren’t any “car manufacturers” as you call the future (and still largely nonexistent) journalism on the web, just metal husks being pulled by horses (old school newspaper journalists). Take away the horses and all you’ve got left is motionless metal husks.
You believe that the “existing news infrastructure hasn’t made the leap they need to make but still have a big enough footprint that others can’t readily jump in” but if there was an actual money making model for what you were talking about, that “footprint” wouldn’t have mattered, it would have already been displaced by your (still) imaginary alternative.
You actually know this, you pointed out Craig Newmark’s* displacement of newspaper ad revenue with his “innovative” idea. Newmark ate what used to be newspaper’s collective lunches: local ad revenue. Newmark figured out how to grab local ad revenue that had nothing to do with journalism. It’s not his “innovation” I have a problem with, it’s his pretense that he puts on, acting as if he’s not doing what he’s doing: wiping out the market that sustained journalism for as far back as “the press” has been around.
And sorry, Josh Marshall and Sam Stein’s brilliant efforts don’t make up for the wiping out of ad revenue of scores and scores and scores of small newspapers by Newmark. Keep in mind that both Marshall and Stein are national political journalists. Where are the local web sustained investigative journalists? How are they going to get paid? Seriously? Your belief in the future doesn’t pay their rents today.
As much as I hope you’re right and I’m wrong, so far what your advocating is the kind of fantasy future of technocratic utopians like Jeff Jarvis.**
The future you envision may eventually happen. But in the meantime there’s going to be at minimum a long, long lag between what was a sustainable model of investing in investigative journalism to the still nonexistent future you’re predicting.
I had more confidence in what you are talking about a decade ago. But the web has NOT (yet) produced anything even marginally comparable to the quality or quantity of what newspapers (nationally and locally) are still, today, and yesterday, and tomorrow PRODUCING.
I’m still waiting for digital communications to mature into what was promised in the scifi books I was reading 25 years ago. I’ve come to the painful conclusion that what you’re talking about is much farther away than you think it is.
I desperately hope for a sustainable internet journalism model but have come to the regrettable conclusion that that might be as likely as that flying car that they promised US in the 1950′s.
I agree with Cardin that “losing our newspaper industry” … “is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy.” His idea of allowing newspapers to operate as nonprofits and even The Nation’s idea of a $200 tax rebate for citizens to use towards buying news media (newspapers, magazines, or even online subscriptions) are interesting and worthy of more consideration.
A better solution would be to break up the mega-media-monoculture-corps that control too much of the conversation. An even better solution would be to encourage the value of being informed citizens in K through 12 classes. But we’ll likely be driving flying cars before the media-corps are broken up or public schools make a nation wide effort to encourage kids to be informed. Both run counter to the right wings values of a monoculture and a manipulable citizenry.
————
* SIDE NOTE: Just this evening the local tv news had a story of local apartment hunters using Craig’s List who were getting scammed by people claiming to represent open apartments: ‘send us the first months rent and the deposit and we’ll send you the keys,’ the Craig’s List contact said through an email, claiming that they were out of the country missionaries with an address in … (wait for it) …. NIGERIA, lol.
Clearly Craig’s List users are getting what they’re paying for. As for the TV doing “investigative journalism” to break the story? The NY Daily News, a print publication from what I understand, did essentially the exact same story a year ago.
**The Register did a brilliant take down of Jeff Jarvis’s book What Would Google Do? The sub heading summed it up: “Journalism prof embraces imaginary perfect company.”
Oliver, could you share what any rules you have for a post to get eateded? X# of links? X# of words? X amount of obnoxiousness of the poster?
I appear to have exceed something in the last post (#comment-144800).
Though this time it might have been my attempt to nest italics within an href tag.
Well, if they can’t make political endorsements, seems like they probably couldn’t have an op-ed page either. Then there’d probably be some verbiage added that such papers have to have a “neutral point of view” in their reporting, which would pretty much kill reader interest, I suspect.
Well, if they can’t make political endorsements, seems like they probably couldn’t have an op-ed page either.
The Center for American Progress and the Heritage Foundation are non-profits, too. No one would accuse them of having a “neutral point of view.”
Oliver, I don’t see the problem with this idea. It’s a free country: if newspapers want to convert to non-profit status, they should. I believe that’s how the Guardian is run. My only question is why a specific new law is required to help this along.
The newspaper industry is dying in large part because for decades it’s been bludgeoned, mostly by right wingers screaming “bias,” but also by many others who have some misdirected hatred for the medium.
By “others” do you mean advertisers? Newspapers are dying because they’re not making any money.
I appear to have exceed something in the last post
The boundaries of reason?
Currently news websites still make only a fraction of what their print publications do, the print publications are what’s paying for those investigative journalists salaries.
Again, they need to make the leap. The newspapers are also paying for a lot of reduntant things – extra layers of cruft, print presses, etc. They need to be lean and mean – like every other industry. The newspapers had it better than most for a while. Things change.
You believe that the “existing news infrastructure hasn’t made the leap they need to make but still have a big enough footprint that others can’t readily jump in” but if there was an actual money making model for what you were talking about, that “footprint” wouldn’t have mattered, it would have already been displaced by your (still) imaginary alternative.
So the news industry can only make the jump when there’s a fully worked out and fleshed out business model? Sorry, too bad. There wasn’t an existing model of revenue when the newspaper business originally sprung to life in America either.
Newmark figured out how to grab local ad revenue that had nothing to do with journalism. It’s not his “innovation” I have a problem with, it’s his pretense that he puts on, acting as if he’s not doing what he’s doing: wiping out the market that sustained journalism for as far back as “the press” has been around.
Newmark isn’t wiping anything out. He’s providing a service the newspapers wouldn’t. If Craigslist didn’t exist it would have been Philslist or Bobslist. I wish I had been prescient enough to start Oliverslist. As it is its clear the news industry had no damn clue about what to do online. Entrepeneurs like Craig don’t sit around waiting for the big boys to get a clue before they ship a product. Using that logic we would still be on services like AOL, lest the Internet undermine the existing online services industry in the early 1990s. That didn’t happen, and a lot of people had their business models upended (Prodigy, where art thou?) TOO BAD.
And sorry, Josh Marshall and Sam Stein’s brilliant efforts don’t make up for the wiping out of ad revenue of scores and scores and scores of small newspapers by Newmark.
You’re blaming the wrong people. Craig didn’t kill the paper. The paper killed the paper. No, Huffpo and TPM are not yet ready to replace the work of local papers investigative units – but the local media needs to get a clue and rework their model ASAP rather than gnashing and wailing about Craigslist and free content on the web.
Keep in mind that both Marshall and Stein are national political journalists. Where are the local web sustained investigative journalists? How are they going to get paid? Seriously? Your belief in the future doesn’t pay their rents today.
As much as I hope you’re right and I’m wrong, so far what your advocating is the kind of fantasy future of technocratic utopians like Jeff Jarvis.**
There’s a lot I disagree with Jeff on, but the near-term future of what the news biz needs to do he isn’t far off on.
The future you envision may eventually happen. But in the meantime there’s going to be at minimum a long, long lag between what was a sustainable model of investing in investigative journalism to the still nonexistent future you’re predicting.
So be it. You’re acting as if the journalism today is this perfect being of wonder and the internet is killing it unnecessarily. Journalism today sucks. It is dying as a result of its own hubris and mistakes. The internet just happens to be the outlet hastening the inevitable.
I’m still waiting for digital communications to mature into what was promised in the scifi books I was reading 25 years ago.
Frankly in some ways we’re way ahead of the scifi I was reading as a kid. Even better the future is more in the hands of the people than the giant corporate org like in those old AT&T “You Will” commercials.
I’ve come to the painful conclusion that what you’re talking about is much farther away than you think it is.
And I think its nearer than you do if the existing media takes the leap. If they don’t take the leap then new, more nimble orgs – often with some of the people losing their jobs in the old media – will be the new vanguards.
His idea of allowing newspapers to operate as nonprofits and even The Nation’s idea of a $200 tax rebate for citizens to use towards buying news media (newspapers, magazines, or even online subscriptions) are interesting and worthy of more consideration.
Both ideas are romantic sentiments aimed at preserving an industry that doesn’t exist anymore that has fallen down on the job multiple times. The only way to save the newspaper industry is for it to blow itself up.
* SIDE NOTE: Just this evening the local tv news had a story of local apartment hunters using Craig’s List who were getting scammed by people claiming to represent open apartments: ‘send us the first months rent and the deposit and we’ll send you the keys,’ the Craig’s List contact said through an email, claiming that they were out of the country missionaries with an address in … (wait for it) …. NIGERIA, lol.
Because nobody has ever ever run a scam in a newspaper’s classifieds section. Are you SERIOUS?
Southern Quaker: Community and state newspapers provide a valuable service that is not, at present, being filled by the blogosphere – namely local reporting.
A void (if it exists) that is being filled. Found this one pretty quickly, for example. Granted, there are some folks who don’t have access to the intertubes as easily as we do, but even there the greater access in libraries, etc. means it will be increasingly rare that anyone won’t be able to read news, local or otherwise, if they want it.
I don’t doubt that information is on its way to becoming 100% digital. But I hardly think Ballard is a good measure of the average community’s access to this kind of resource.
I still haven’t seen an argument against allowing newspapers to operate as non-profits that rises above the level of “newspapers are old fashioned and lame.” What are the downsides of this bill? Do they really outweigh the benefits of maintaining a resource that many communities depend upon? And I’m not just talking small-town newspapers, either. My state, with no major national market to speak of, has two state-wide newspapers that provide coverage of state and local issues that we could never find in the national media.
As an example, the coal ash spill in Knoxville, TN was virtually ignored by the national media and blogs – including this one – in spite of being larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill (and it was hardly the first spill of this magnitude). But the Knoxville papers & local media have done a bang-up job of covering the disaster and its aftermath.
But, dude, if papers go bust, what will the homeless use for blankets?
Seriously, I think you may overestimate the number of people who are connected to the interwebs. Some folks aren’t and don’t want to be. Papers are their input for information.
Southern Quaker: I still haven’t seen an argument against allowing newspapers to operate as non-profits that rises above the level of “newspapers are old fashioned and lame.”
So, let them run as non profits if they want. Someone up thread mentioned the Guardian already does. Why is a new law needed?
Let’s go to the stated motivation for this “fix”:
So, the reason to prop up newspapers (not journalism or reporting or commentary or information dissemination, mind you, but specifically doing so in an ink-on-paper format) is that the loss would be a “tragedy for communities… and for our democracy”.
How so?
What will communities lose if there aren’t piles of paper at the newsstands? There is still a demand for news and something that doesn’t have a admitted broken business model will develop (is developing) to meet it. Saying information has to be presented in ink-paper form is no more valid than saying the paper has to be of particular dimensions. The key is the info is available, not that it’s available on paper.
Will our democracy suffer because journalists publish the results of their work online instead of on paper? Again, the info is available and is getting out there. In many cases in a far more informative and accurate way than in corporate owned newspapers. I can read a story on the web and easily click the links it contains or search for other stories/views on the same subject. I can get a broader view far more readily than I can from newsprint. How does that not lead to a more informed populace? how is that not actually good for democracy?
I still haven’t seen an argument against allowing newspapers to operate as non-profits that rises above the level of “newspapers are old fashioned and lame.” ??
I still haven’t seen an argument FOR propping up newspapers that rises above the level of “newspapers are what we’re used to.”
I still haven’t seen an argument FOR propping up newspapers that rises above the level of “newspapers are what we’re used to.”
I thought both Duros and I had done just that. Not everyone is connected to the web. And not every community is served by local, on-line newspapers. The only thing this law does is allow newspapers to re-charter themselves as non-profit companies, so that advertising and subscription revenue would be tax-exempt. How is that “propping them up?”
And The Guardian is a UK paper. I doubt it’s covered under US non-profit laws.