Posted by 
On March 24th Benjamin Cardin introduced a new Bill called the Newspaper Revitalization Act
…and you thought the “Fairness Doctrine” was bad. How about having a Fairness Doctrine disguised as a bailout for all of the liberal newspapers which are headed the way of AIG?
Folks, this is something I knew was going to happen. So now, basically the government is going to bailout these newspapers, keep their non profit status and start dictating what they can and can’t include in their newspapers.
Senator Cardin states that the papers could not endorse candidates and would allow investors to make contrbutions. So, you might ask why the Senator is doing this? His answer? He says he wants to preserve a great American tradition. Bullshit. Pure and simple. This is simply a new and improved printed version of the Fairness Doctrine intended to stifle the conservative voice of America once again.
Senator Cardin compares himself to a modern day Thomas Jefferson. He feels that the government has an obligation to keep the public informed. Informed about what? All of the corruption going on within? We’ll certainly never see any of that in print again if this Bill passes.
I am so sick and tired of all the bailouts at the expense of the taxpayers and Senator Cardin wants to get yet another one through our corrupted system.
This bailout would give newspapers the option of restructuring as tax-exempt nonprofits. Did you know that they have always had this option? Just look at the Associated Press. If this Bill passes, not only will the government be able to tell CEO’s of large corporations what to do they will be able tell the newspapers what to print, when to print it, and where to distribute their papers. Doesn’t this freak you out? It’s like Big Brother watching your every step.
Here’s a good book for you if you are interested in reading further:
Joseph Farah’s book Stop the Presses!: The Inside Story of the New Media Revolution
explains why long established traditional newspapers are going into bankruptcy.
..another Senator brought to the forefront of Political Misconduct – Benjamin Cardin
Are you kidding me? Are you seriously calling this a bailout? What taxpayer money is going to be injected directly into newspapers? None.
Also, your conservative paranoia is absolutely pathetic. I don’t understand how this bill is aimed directly at stifling the conservative voice and I bet you can’t logically explain step by step how it is without including some sort of predicated-on-nothing bullshit.
And how is this a reinstatement of the fairness doctrine? From what I’ve read, the fairness doctrine was a federal law requiring every outlet to operate under a certain regulation. Cardin’s bill modifies the tax code to allow newspapers to restructure as non-profits and therefore would be VOLUNTARILY giving up their rights to publish endorsements or dis-endorsements of candidates running for office. (I think this would mean that any newspapers operating under this act during the recent presidential campaign couldn’t have come out in explicit support for Obama either, so your argument that this is targeted at conservative is extremely weak.)
But I guess if you would have considered all of these issues, you wouldn’t have had fodder for a post, would you have?
You can’t have a democracy without a free press.
This Bill seeks to “To allow certain newspapers to be treated as described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and exempt from tax under section 501(a) of such Code.”
How can I explain logically how this Bill will stifle the conservative voice? Read the excerpt from the bill below first.
“(2) the newspaper published by such corporation or organization contains local, national, and international news stories of interest to the general public and the distribution of such newspaper is necessary or valuable in achieving an educational purpose, and
(3) the preparation of the material contained in such newspaper follows methods generally accepted as educational in character.”
Now, let me ask you a question. Who will decide what is educational in nature? I’ll answer for you. Our government will. Just like they did in the Fairness Doctrine which you obviously have not read. If you had, you would realize that it was an attempt by our government to silence the conservatives.
Why do you think Obama has specifically told the American people they should not be listening to Rush Limbaugh. What right as President of the Untied States does he have to single out a private citizen and attack him? None. Our current government would love to silence all conservative talk radio and they want to do the same with our Newspapers.
How is this a bailout from taxpayer money? What don’t you understand about a non-profit? They are exempt from paying tax. This means that as a private business they pay no taxes. This is a bailout every single year! The government will be giving them money by allowing them the freedom of paying no taxes. Are you just plain stupid? Can you not grasp this concept? The major newspapers are certainly not non-profit corporations and it’s ridiculous to allow our government to control any aspect of them.
Let them fail if they can’t make it. Maybe people just don’t want to read the liberal “fodder” in their newspapers.
I appreciate your response.
But the aspect that I don’t feel that you made clear is how specifically this is going to stifle the CONSERVATIVE voice. It would seem that this bill would stifle liberal as well as conservative papers. But then again you are right I have not read any of the books that you have read explaining how the fairness doctrine was an affront on conservative outlets. But my main issue with your fairness doctrine argument is that the fairness doctrine applied to ALL holders of broadcast licenses. The restrictions in Cardin’s bill would apply only to newspapers filing specifically for a certain tax-exempt status. Papers would be able to choose to not do this, including those papers with mostly conservative voices.
And by doing this, in effect, I feel it would actually create more allure for explicitly conservative-leaning and explicitly liberal-leaning newspapers, because they would have within their pages certain things that the nonprofit newspapers would not have, while at the same time co-existing with these other newspapers.
But I absolutely agree with you that the “educational” aspect is a gigantic semantic quandary and I have no idea as to what the parameters of the word “educational” is. The only thing is that I would like to know what know what the parameters of “educational” are, and maybe your right that it is too tricky to even consider. But I feel that if a handful of newspapers — and notice that Cardin in the video above says that this bill is meant for LOCAL newspapers — that are struggling to report on local issues because of market pressures want to try to live within these parameters instead of folding and leaving a blind spot, then it would not be terrible for that to be allowed. I know this argument isn’t perfect and that there is a distinct possibility of my being absolutely naive, but I am too interested in having an actual debate over these issues and wanting to know if this could work to push it off.
Whether the Fairness Doctrine had much of an impact in stifling just the conservative voice is debatable. My biggest problem is I believe there is absolutely no way to fairly assess what type of material can be broadcast and what type can’t. It’s so much easier to just let the system work with minimal government oversight.
I am a strong believer in the capitalist system. If a company or business can’t succeed, the government should not bail them out or give them special privileges that would give them an unfair advantage over their competitors. The Newspapers have not been willing to adapt to the fundamental changes over the past 15 years in how people read the news. I believe that the majority of major newspapers around the country have become increasingly liberal in their views. I still believe that the majority of people in the US are moderates or slightly right of moderate. This silent majority coupled with the lack of adaptation by the newspapers has resulted in less readers and less advertisers. I may be way off base but it’s my opinion as to what’s going on.