Lots of chatter surrounding Sen. Benjamin Cardin’s (D-Maryland) bill that would restructure ailing newspaper companies into non-profits with a variety of tax breaks.
Cardin’s plan hasn’t yet attracted co-sponsors, but it has sparked the interest of many within the media, according to Reuters. The plan would give newspapers similar status to public broadcasting companies. They’d be able to report the news as they usually do, but would be restricted from making political endorsements.
Media observers, however, are skeptical such a plan would actually be in the newspaper industry’s best interests. Alan Mutter, managing partner of Tapit Partners and author of the Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, notes the St. Petersburg Times and Christian Science Monitor are two newspapers already owned by non-profits that are struggling.
Regardless of whether a paper is owned by a non-profit organization or an unreconstructed capitalist, it has to take in more money than it spends – or it will perish. The form of ownership doesn’t change this fundamental truth.
Non-profit ownership also can’t change the underlying negative fundamentals affecting the industry. BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis, who runs the City University of New York’s interactive journalism program, hit the nail on the head with his post earlier this morning. The real problem with making floundering newspapers not-for-profit is that rescuing and not reinventing these struggling publications only delays their inevitable demise, he says.
The sooner that papers reinvent themselves for the new age, the better. If this delays that inevitability, papers will only languish in the past and others will come and overtake them.”
The same can be said for banks and automakers, he says. Bailout mania sweeping the nation is only forestalling change and innovation at some of the nation’s largest institutions.
We are bailing out the past, not the future. We are forestalling the need to change. Change isn’t easy. It’s hard on people. It’s destructive. It will leave voids and vacuums. But it is inevitable. The smart thing to do today is to run to the change, seek it out, find the opportunities in it, deal with the hard problems it brings instead of avoiding them.
