Senator Proposes Nonprofit Status For Newspapers 426
The AP is reporting that a senator has introduced legislation that would allow struggling newspapers to operate as nonprofits, similar to the way public broadcasting works. "[Sen. Benjamin] Cardin [D-Md.] introduced a bill that would allow newspapers to choose tax-exempt status. They would no longer be able to make political endorsements, but could report on all issues including political campaigns. Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax-exempt, and contributions to support coverage could be tax deductible. Cardin said in a statement that the bill is aimed at preserving local newspapers, not large newspaper conglomerates. ... The head of the newspaper industry's trade group called the bill a positive step."
Shortly to be followed by.... (Score:1, Informative)
the music industry cartel, then a decade later, the movie cartel?
Great (Score:5, Informative)
Why not just make everything tax exempt? Then everyone would be more profitable, not just the failed buggy-whip companies.
Re:Balanced media (Score:5, Informative)
NPR is national, so it is relatively easy to keep tabs on and has to cater to a large and diverse audience to keep in the donations.
A local newspaper is a lot smaller, and will only attract donations from rich people in that town - so it has a much more pronounced bias in its donors.
Re:1st Amendment? (Score:3, Informative)
Not only that, but why are we trying to resuscitate the dying corpse of print media? If you got 10-20 min. This is a really great article [shirky.com] on this subject. Elevator speech of the article: We don't need newspapers, we need journalism. There are opportunities to be had by these businesses, but they are unwilling to adapt and embrace them. **AA easily fit this same situation.
Re:1st Amendment? (Score:3, Informative)
Most tax-exempt nonprofits that deal with government issues don't have to censor themselves at all, only charities (to which donations are tax-deductible for the donor) have to do that. Most tax-exempt nonprofits aren't prohibited from endorsing candidates, and many are quite active in doing so (e.g., the Sierra Club and the NRA, among many others, as nonprofits organizations that are tax-exempt under 26 U.S.C. sec. 501(c)(4); most labor unions, as nonprofit organizations that are tax-exempt under 26 U.S.C. sec. 501(c)(5), etc.)
Re:What a good idea (Score:4, Informative)
The fourth most centrist outlet was "Special Report With Brit Hume" on Fox News, which often is cited by liberals as an egregious example of a right-wing outlet. While this news program proved to be right of center, the study found ABC's "World News Tonight" and NBC's "Nightly News" to be left of center. All three outlets were approximately equidistant from the center, the report found.
Sounds surprising right? The report eventually concludes to with that while most media leans left of center, they are almost all more moderate in comparison to our politicians.
And no offense but I take it you are not a reporter. The fact that you would be unable to provide an unbiased article on the DNC does not indicate that people trained in journalism would be unable to do the same. The ability to put aside personal beliefs is a skill that is stronger in some compared to others. Lawyers do it everyday for instance.
Re:Omission is not always bias (Score:5, Informative)
Alicia Shepard, ombudsman at NPR, has a lengthy article and attached PDF with charts over here [npr.org]. The main article is about NPR and campaign coverage, but they have something to say about the "general" news bias as well, and not just about themselves; an extract:
Timothy Groseclose is a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who also studies media bias. He and another professor published a study in 2005 that concluded that 18 of the 20 major media outlets studied (including NPR) were left of center, as compared to the average U.S. voter. Only Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume and The Washington Times scored to the right of the average U.S. voter. (Results are on P. 22 of PDF.)
"By our estimate, NPR hardly differs from the average mainstream news outlet," said Groseclose. "It had the same scores as Time, Newsweek and was slightly less liberal than the Washington Post and well to the right of the New York Times and CBS Evening News. One of the surprising findings is that NPR is not as left as everyone says it is."
NPR got a score of 66.3, with 50 being centrist and 100 being most liberal. The Wall Street Journal's news pages (not the well-known conservative editorial pages) got an 85.1 and The New York Times and CBS each got a 73.7.
Does this mean that news organizations are, on average, to the left of the general public, or does it mean that we've been sold the idea that they're lefties, and we see them through that lens, and this shows up when asked about bias? That's another matter.
Can we separate the concepts of coverage and quality? I would generally prefer to listen to something that sounds reasoned and equitable, though it may have a left-leaning bias, than listen to something clearly spewing, conspiratorial, and accusatory that has a balancing right-leaning bias. I care less about the bias than the approach to the news, to the guests, to the context.
Re:What a good idea (Score:5, Informative)
Have you ever read The Economist ? These guys are economic conservative, and social liberals. Pretty much the opposite of Fox News: they advocate gay marriage, abortion...
I find in particular that they try to separate facts from opinions, and to be reasonably pragmatic.
Sample of articles for this week:
Mr. Obama's first 2 months: http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13362078 [economist.com]
Religious people and death: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13315834 [economist.com]
Funding impacting a research paper: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13361480 [economist.com]
Online dating and the crisis: http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13381506 [economist.com]
Bias (Score:3, Informative)
Does CNN management send memos to their reporters with instructions like "His [Bush's] political courage and tactical cunning ar[e] [wo]rth noting in our reporting through the day"? Memos that a former employee describes as "talking points instructing us what the themes are supposed to be, and God help you if you stray"?
If so, I promise to despise them. If not, then Fox is a different kind of organization than CNN, not a differently biased one of the same kind.
You can be biased and still be honest. You can be biased without being a party's house organ. I wish we had more bias like we get from The Economist, which wears their opinions on their sleeve while still doing real reporting.
Re:What a good idea (Score:3, Informative)
No thanks, I'd rather my media doesn't treat me like I lack the ability to come up with my own conclusions.
My favorite is, "What happened (was discovered, almost happened) today, and why you should be scared." At least I know what they're trying to sell.
Re:1st Amendment? (Score:3, Informative)
Also the quality of the reporting has gone to shit (in Denmark).
Back in the olden days in the before time before internet, becoming a journalist was extremely tough (here in Denmark), you had to have a high average in high school and getting through journalism "school" was tough. Back then reporters could spell their own name without looking it up, they could ask intelligent questions rather than just writing down whatever their subject was saying.
These days you have to look hard to find a single article that hasn't been written by someone who has absolutely no grasp of whats going on, nor free of grammatical/spelling errors.
Paper or electronic, I'd gladly pay a fee for a proper newspaper, but I can't find one any more...