Obama may support nonprofit newspapers, but the 1st Amendment won’t
Posted by Clyde Middleton
on Sep 20 2009 Filed under Politics.
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Obama said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.
“I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’ll be happy to look at them,” Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade in an interview.
The bill being discussed is the Newspaper Revitalization Act introduced by Sen. Cardin (D-MD).
Nonprofits can’t endorse political candidates directly or indirectly, and may be constrained in taking too strong a line for or against government proposals. So, the NYT without telling its several readers which lever to pull? Feels like a reduction of free speech.
Media Business writes this:
One drawback of using 501(c)(3) status is that entities are not permitted to engage in direct political activities, such as endorsing candidates for local, state, or national office or possibly even taking positions on governmental proposals. This would somewhat limit the scope of content and could lead to IRS investigations if complaints were made to the IRS that a paper was taking sides, was too conservative or liberal, or evidenced some other kind of agenda that was deemed political activity.
It is a reduced ability of news organizations to openly and freely criticize their government. That is not good on any level.
It would also result in a smaller paper. Here’s the ad limits:
Paragraph (c) permits advertising, but limits it “to the extent that the space allotted to all such advertisements….does not exceed the space allotted to fulfilling the educational purpose of such qualified newspaper corporation.” This provision is apparently intended to ensure advertising does not dominate the content and effectively limits advertising to 50 percent of the content. This provision, however, is problematic because daily newspapers and most non-dailies currently contain two-thirds to three-quarters advertising. Indeed the regulations governing Post Office (USPS) distribution limit advertising to 75 percent.
If they have to cut ad space, they are not going to fill the void with upwards of 50% more content. The paper will become smaller. Less news; less opinion.
BNet suggests that even a change in organizational form doesn’t solve the problems that got the industry where it is today:
This much is clear. Those running Mother Jones, CIR, NPR and The Nation will need to fully grasp the magnitude of the transformation sweeping all media in order to continue their great traditions. Accordingly, they, too, are exploring the online options for ways to adapt and survive.
In other words, no media company, of any size or business model, can escape the twin forces of globalization and technological change.
An infusion of government bailout money and a change of form to nonprofit will only give a transfusion to an arguably terminally ill patient. Further, it will come at the expense of free speech.
Another dumb idea from an Administration with a proclivity to not think things through.
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