What's good for GM is good for newspapers

Congress snubbed Detroit's automakers Thursday. The Big Three (GM, Ford and Chrysler) want billions in taxpayer money to prevent a collapse of the industry and the loss of millions of jobs. Detroit will be back later with a new proposal for bailing out the industry, but Congress doesn't seem particularly sympathetic toward the industry that once ruled America.

Congress has appropriated $750 billion to bail out the finance industry (banks, brokerages and others), but the infusion of cash with a promise of more to come has done little to reassure investors or to restore credit.

Everyone has his hand out in this financial crisis. Has Congress considered bailing out the newspaper business? Seriously.  Newspapers are facing the worst crisis since they were reporting the Civil War. Readers are fleeing to the Internet and other media. Advertisers are pulling back. Web sites such as e-Bay and Craigslist are killing classified advertising. As a result, journalists are being snuffed out like fleas in a flea dip. McClatchy newspapers, which boldly bought the troubled Knight-Ridder chain, has had to cut payroll and pages at all of its newspapers to make debt payments on its loan. Newspapers are offering buyouts. Great newspapers such as the New York Times and Washington Post are getting rid of reporters and editors. The Charleston Post and Courier has shed dozens of people with buyouts. The Greensboro News & Record has offered buyouts to everyone on the staff. I can certify that even small newspapers are being hurt. I am one of five people (so far) laid off by The Wilson Daily Times. News coverage is being curtailed.

The Founding Fathers thought enough of newspapers to write the First Amendment, which guarantees that government will not interfere in the operations of the press. Shouldn't the current Congress care enough about whether constituents are informed about important issues to provide a small incentive to newspapers that keep news staff on board or hire additional journalists or maintain the number of news stories they publish at pre-collapse levels? Perhaps a tax credit for the hiring or retention of reporters and editors or a credit for the purchase of newsprint and ink. 

If banks, brokerages, insurance companies and automakers get a government handout, why not newspapers?