BAILOUT-MANIA: Maryland Senator Suggests Support for Failing Newspapers

You’ve Got to be Kidding!!!

Senator Ben Cardin, Democrat Maryland, has proposed legislation to provide bailout funding for the failing newspaper industry. His measure, The Newspaper Revitalization Act, has not yet received a second. The government is bailing out banks, insurance companies, and the auto industry so why not the newspapers?

Article from Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE52N67F20090324

Make no mistake about it. The newspaper industry is in deep trouble. The New York Times, once America’s paper of record, is failing miserably. The downward trend of readership continues as circulation and advertising revenue evaporates. The “gray lady” is virtually on life support selling off assets including a substantial stake in their huge New York headquarters near Times Square. Their stock is worth practically nothing. They’ve reached junk bond status.

The Tribune Organization publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Baltimore Sun among others as well as having substantial media holdings including superstation WGN, has filed for Chapter 11 protection.

The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press have both cut back on home delivery eliminating every day delivery. The Washington Post has substantially scaled back the size of its newspaper.

Companies are failing; people are losing jobs. Washington to the rescue right?

WRONG!!!

What we’re seeing is simply good old fashioned capitalism at work. Just as horse drawn carriages gave way to the automobile, the traditional newspaper is being replaced by news sources available on the Internet and twenty four hour cable news.

Furthermore, in many cases their product is garbage. Where major newspapers once upheld a creed of objectivity and were a major voice of and for their community, over the last thirty years, an industry that was once rich in diverse points-of-view, has become essentially little more than a mouthpiece for the radical left political philosophy where one can almost count on virtually every single newspaper in major markets will uniformly endorse Democratic candidates unless they have a real ax to grind against one of their candidates who strayed too far off course.

It’s not just an editorial, but this bias pervades their reportage as well where they spare no measure to embarrass Republicans and conservatives while giving kid glove treatment to Democrats. It’s not surprising then, that when recent scandals developed around Democratic politicians like former New York Governor, Elliot Spitzer’s involvement with prostitutes or the long list of corruption charges against impeached Illinois Governor, Rod Blogejevich, any mention of party affiliation is conspicuously missing where Republican bad boys like Idaho Senator Larry Craig trumpeted constantly he was a Republican.

What better illustration could there be of Democratic support than the news media’s support of Barack Obama’s campaign so beautifully documented by former CBS reporter, current Media Analyst, Bernard Goldberg’s book, A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media.

At times, the media’s conduct has even gone so far as to appear treasonous; however, we never find out who the source is of the unnamed sources within the affected organizations who spill the beans. The New York Times revealed the government’s intelligence gathering methods including how intelligence operations followed the money trail of terrorists’ assets. In World War II, the public understood, “loose lips sink ships.” In today’s media, blabbing national security secrets for the sake of attempting to embarrass and show up an administration they despise is no problem. Surely, their lawyers opine just how far they can go before facing legal scrutiny for such efforts. However, it seems as though every reporter today fancies himself or herself as being one who could find the next Daniel Ellsberg who outed the Pentagon Papers which helped discredit the Vietnam War or Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein whose efforts helped connect the pieces that lead right to the top of the Nixon administration with the Watergate scandal.

The public is smart enough to know that George W. Bush was no Richard Nixon whether they supported his presidency or not. Likewise, the public knows what happened on 9/11/01 and realizes the war on terror is a real threat, not another Vietnam. Still, almost from before the dust settled in lower Manhattan, the news media, led by The New York Times, seldom treated the threat with the gravitas it deserved and once war started to deal with enemies in the Islamic world gleefully reported episodes like the Abu Ghraib as if such conduct was business as usual for our military not to mention the frenzy about alleged torture employed against the most ruthless and powerful leaders of Al Qaeda who helped plan, organize, and execute terrorists’ attacks against the United States. Any coercive interrogation was deemed torture as headlines blared, ‘Bush Administration Torture…”

All this has lead to an enterprise with a very narrow audience. While major newspapers might be preaching to the choir among the most liberal members of their community, they are sorely out of touch with the rest of the community, and who needs the sports page with ESPN, regional sports networks, and the Internet anyway?

The real casualty of the newspaper’s decline is local and regional news. Local television news seldom deals with anything other than the most sensational stories following the mantra of “if it bleeds, it leads,” and the rest of the coverage is much more oriented toward celebrity and lifestyle issues where if a Hollywood star is signing autographs at a local hotspot is far more important than the local school budget or proposals to build a new highway unless there’s a screaming outcry by local television news producers.

Clearly, good local newspapers could still have a vital function in today’s society if they were in touch with their community, cut out the conspicuous bias, and continued to use creativity and market savvy to promote their products effectively.

The bottom line is newspapers are failing because they deserve to fail. Not only have they become obsolete, but the quality of their product on the basis of poor quality, lack of coverage, and conspicuous bias is not worth the customer’s support.

The specter of government money supporting the news media is astonishing. The first amendment of the Constitution provides, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”

So what happens if Congress provides taxpayer funds to keep failing newspapers afloat that they as consumers have already voted against by not buying their products? What kind of analytical or critical reporting could be expected from a source that is beholden on the very institution they are charged to cover honesty to pay their salaries?

The potential for abuse is overwhelming. Whether overt or implied, those newspaper companies who could receive government aid would surely be the subjects of those who control the purse strings.

The Cardin proposal is laughable on the surface and should be laughed right out of the arena of political possibilities. Nevertheless, few could imagine just how far and how bold Washington has gotten involved with enterprises that were simply not government functions just a few years ago. Oops, we forgot all about that newspapers provide a vital product for poopy training dogs, lining animal cages, and wrapping up dead fish. No virtual or on-line approach substitutes for that!!

Surely, as public citizens, especially those of us who live in Maryland could give Senator Cardin a little guidance. One had to wonder if the Baltimore Sun had been more balanced in its coverage or possibly endorsed Republican challenger, Michael Steele, current Republican National Chairman, Cardin could have lost his bid to replace outgoing Senator Paul Sarbanes.

Senator Ben Cardin
509 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Phone: 202-224-4524

Email: (note the form approach!) http://cardin.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm