Why Should Newspapers Be Bailed Out?
Add newspapers to the list of businesses that might get a government bailout. What next? Shopping malls? How about used CD stores? Are any online retailers “too big to fail?” Harry & David? Omaha Steaks? PajamaGram.com?
Here’s the thing. We might not be able to keep every 1990 and 2000 decades model going in this economy. We also might have to let newspapers evolve into whatever they’re going to be next. According to a new poll, many Americans are flummoxed about what to do as we try to both move into a new era and hang on with a death grip to the old one.
Thirty-seven percent (37%) of Americans favor federal government subsidies to keep newspapers in business…
Forty-three percent (43%) say it’s better to let the papers go out of business, and 20% are not sure what to do.
Thirty-two percent (32%) of Americans believe some newspapers are too important to fail. Fifty percent (50%) reject this idea.
Fifty-one percent (51%) oppose a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last week that would let newspapers become tax-exempt non-profit organizations as long as they don’t endorse political candidates.
What I don’t get about the widely prophesied disappearance of newspapers is why the model of broadcast television, which I still watch, doesn’t work for the press. Here’s the concept: you sell ads to companies that want to sell products to your viewers, and the viewers, in exchange for watching the ads, get your content for free.
Broadcast news, and even cable news, figured out how to make their programs interesting enough to remain in business based on ad sales. Why can’t newspapers do the same? On the other hand, satellite radio, which boasts less advertising in exchange for higher fees to listeners, is struggling. And hulu recently found that people would rather watch programs with brief commercial interruptions than either by watching one long ad at the beginning or no ads but paying for a subscription.
I do not advocate the end of newspapers. Even though I get more news online, by far, than from the paper, I think there is a place, especially for community news, in print. But propping up an industry that shows few signs of evolving with the times is not the answer.
