Nonprofit news organizations: some want government subsidy

News outlets often have an adversarial relationship with the government, a longstanding tension underscored most recently by the Obama administration’s pursuit of leaks to the Associated Press and Fox News Channel and the decisions of the Washington Post and the Guardian newspapers to publish National Security Agency documents. Nevertheless, it might come as a surprise to know that the government historically has provided some financial assistance to the news media. And according to a Pew Research Center survey, many leaders of the growing nonprofit news sector say they would welcome such assistance. A plurality of those surveyed, 39% of the nonprofit news outlets, said they favor “some form of government subsidies” to help fund organizations like theirs. More than a quarter (28%) said they were not sure. And another 30% said they oppose government subsidies to help finance nonprofit news outlets.