Recap: The Future of Journalism

On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet held a hearing on The Future of Journalism.

Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) said the US government could provide tax breaks for newspapers or allow them to operate as nonprofits to help the struggling business survive.

Chairman Kerry and other Senators raised concerns that without newspapers there will be too few journalists investigating governments, companies and individuals. He said the hearing was the first in a series that will focus on how to help newspapers adjust to the new media landscape. Under consideration are tax relief methods, including how and when publishers can classify operating losses, and whether newspapers should be allowed to operate as nonprofit companies for educational purposes.

Under a bill proposed by Sen Ben Cardin (D-MD), newspapers turning to nonprofit status 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. Sen Cardin has said that his aim is to preserve local papers, not large newspaper conglomerates.

Former Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll said he supports Cardin's proposal, but he does not think many papers would be able to change to nonprofit status.

Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of The Huffington Post, a Web site of opinion and news, said despite all the hand-wringing about the decline of the newspaper industry, these are good times for news consumers. "Can anyone seriously argue that this isn't a magnificent time for readers who can surf the net, use search engines, and go to news aggregators to access the best stories from countless sources around the world — stories that are up-to-the-minute, not rolled out once a day?" she said in prepared remarks. Huffington said the future of journalism is not dependent on the future of newspapers. "No, the future is to be found elsewhere," she said. "It is a linked economy. It is search engines. It is online advertising. It is citizen journalism and foundation-supported investigative funds. That's where the future is."

James Moroney III, the publisher of Belo Corp's Dallas Morning News, said Congress should set rules so Internet companies pay "reasonable compensation" for using newspapers' content on Web sites. He cited concern about "the use of newspaper-generated content for someone else's commercial gain." Payments for content could form "a financial bulwark for local journalism."