Newspapers Going Bankrupt; Dems Want Bailed Out ‘Independent’ Media
The New York Times and the Boston Globe are both in dire straits. To add more fuel to the fire, the Boston Globe is owned by the New York Times and both papers are losing significant amounts of money and are experiencing severe debt problems.
As The New York Times Co. tries to bask in the glory of having bagged five Pulitzers, the company is facing a cash crunch that could put it on the path toward insolvency.
According to its first-quarter earnings report, the Times said it had cash and cash equivalents totaling $294 million.
However, $260 million of that is earmarked to pay off debt that matures in March 2010, effectively leaving the company with $34 million.
That’s a particularly precarious position to be in, given the Gray Lady posted a wider-than-expected, first-quarter loss of $74.5 million amid worsening advertising declines, and is scrambling to raise cash as it labors under a $1.3 billion debt load.
This should be an indication of ultra liberal slants on newspapers and how they fare in Capitalist environments. Most newspapers will probably go the way of the Internet with paid member subscriptions, but it’s quite interesting how most of the papers going out of business are more liberal than right-leaning.
There should be no bailouts in a capitalist society. These companies chose their business models and how they would present news. If people catch on and no longer purchase the paper and the companies can no longer make a profit, well that’s just the name of the game in free markets.
Troubled by the possible shuttering of his hometown paper, Sen. John Kerry reached out to the Boston Globe on Tuesday, then called for Senate hearings to address the woes of the nation’s print media.
“To the Boston Globe family,” the Massachusetts Democrat wrote to employees of the 132-year-old publication, which faces closure unless it can come up with $20 million in union concessions to parent company the New York Times by May 1. The Globe is losing $1 million a week.
“America’s newspapers are struggling to survive, and while there will be serious consequences in terms of the lives and financial security of the employees involved, including hundreds at the Globe, there will also be serious consequences for our democracy where diversity of opinion and strong debate are paramount,” Mr. Kerry said.
[...]
Mr. Kerry, who has called for Senate hearings on “the future of journalism” to begin May 6, also cited the negative influence of “agenda-driven reporting” and media conglomerates.
Of course there will be agenda-driven reportingif bailouts are received from the government. Take for example the plan that Ms. Brooks, the newest member of Obama’s cabinet, has.
“Years of foolish policies have left us with a choice: We can bail out journalism, using tax dollars and granting licenses in ways that encourage robust and independent reporting and commentary, or we can watch, wringing our hands, as more and more top journalists are laid off,” she wrote in her parting column on April 9.
Brooks said this would help rescue the industry from a “death spiral” and left the government unaccountable to the journalists who must keep it honest. “[I] can’t imagine anything more dangerous than a society in which the news industry has more or less collapsed,” she wrote.
But critics say her proposal would spell an end to the independent media and make journalists reliant lapdogs.
“The day that the government gets involved in the news media you see the end of the democratic process, because an independent news media is absolutely essential to the success of a democracy,” said L. Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group.
A nice lesson in common sense for Ms. Brooks is in order, however, a woman who received a bailout herself for a job she is unqualified for, probably will never get it.
You simply can’t have “independent” media when it’s receiving taxpayer money from the government. There would always be a major conflict on interest; something that happens already, but would be much worse. They would just become propagandists of government. We have seen state-run media outlets in dictatorships, fascist regimes and communist countries – let’s not go that route and maybe for once we could uphold our constitution.
“The decline of print newspapers doesn’t mean the decline of journalism. What we need to have for journalism is journalists, and lots of them,” testified Ben Scott of the Free Press, a nonpartisan group for media reform.
“But we should avoid the temptation to turn to policies that resemble bailouts. We should not relax the antitrust standards to permit further consolidation. The most consolidated newspaper companies are among those in the worst financial shape today,” he said.
Last month, Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, Maryland Democrat, introduced the Newspaper Revitalization Act” that would allow papers to operate as nonprofits, prompting many analysts to examine the political implications of the tactic.
Let’s get back to real objective reporting, shall we?
