Monday, January 19, 2009

Are you ready for some newspaper pledge drives?... congressman wants to see troubled newspapers operated as non-profits

Here's another bad idea coming out of congress. Jim McDermott (D-Seattle) wants to use his position as a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee to explore ways to save troubled newspapers.

In a guest column in the Seattle P-I, McDermott says we should learn from the UK and let more newspapers operate as nonprofits. “The tax code might have a direct bearing on developing a new business model for the newspaper business nationwide,” McDermott says.

If newspapers convert to non-profit status, their revenue would come from a mixture of government funds, advertising, and pledge drives, like PBS and NPR. Just awesome.
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Hat tip: Newspaper Death Watch

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Duh! They already are non-profit. That's the problem.

Anonymous said...

……like PBS and NPR??

Those are scary letters.

Anonymous said...

PBS and NPR don't even pretend to be fair and balanced. If under the new plan, the almost defunked media adopts the non-profits news strategy? How would we tell the difference from how they operate now? Oh right, taxpayers would be footing the bills.

Anonymous said...

…and pledge drives…

How many more Yanni concerts does that mean?

Anonymous said...

Is this new non-profit plan slated to take off during the almost economic depression, the Democrats told us about during the election buzz?

Anonymous said...

Related.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-overholsercowan19-2009jan19,0,5559206.story


Free press, with profits
People are still interested in serious journalism, but it is hurting financially and new ideas are needed to keep it in business.

Anonymous said...

Anon. 9:36 AM - Good related.

“A robust press is vital to our democracy”

They meant to say, A Liberal press is vital to our party.

Bwahahahahaha

Anonymous said...

Official State Organs, eh?

I would expect as much from McDermott.

Anonymous said...

LOL old Baghdad Jim crawls out from under his rock. I guess he figures it won't be illegal to funnel illegal recordings to the media if they are official government agencies in the future. I'll never understand why he wasn't criminally charged. Oh well, his reappearance will help to remind the country why they got rid of this group of clowns in the first place. They can't help themselves.

He's one of the Marxists in the "Progressive Caucus" isn't he?