Over the last few years legislators have been debating a variety of schemes to inject public dollars into news organizations, at least in part to prop up a rapidly collapsing business model that’s been in place since the Second World War.
Newspapers — and local newspapers in particular — are in a state of collapse across much of the country.
In Connecticut, the picture is a little more complicated, with Hearst buying up most of the medium-sized papers, cutting staff, and farming out stories to the local outlets.
One of the last independent outlets still churning out paper copies, The Day, is visibly collapsing. Just 6 years ago, when CT Examiner launched, The Day dwarfed our efforts, today its aging “hard news” staff weighs in at roughly half.
Meanwhile CT Mirror, the favored outlet of the State Capitol, doesn’t cover much local news, and is relatively unknown to anyone who isn’t politically active or in big business, but has a nonprofit model that places stories in many of the other local papers.
Our local news model, with a paywall and modest subscriber fee, works. We’re growing. But the business side is still a slog.
Taken together, I have to say, I welcome the attention legislators are paying to the issue, but the cure in this case — House Bill 5978 — is no doubt worse than the disease.
The idea, which has the support of CT Mirror and a few small outlets, is to offer a refundable tax credit to news organizations that cover local communities in the state — $15,000 per journalist in the state, and $25,000 per new journalist hired in the state, with a cap of $150,000.
Why am I opposed?
In part, because in the age of Substack, Tiktok, podcasts, freelancers, bloggers, and highly-partisan news of varying quality, I do not believe the government or any instrument of the government (or frankly any news organization) should be in the position of delineating what is or what isn’t qualifying journalism or local news. It’s an invitation to mischief, and for a thousand frankly lousy news sources to bloom in an effort to soak up money rather than write the news.
That said, who are you or I to say, that an organization simply peddles propaganda, parodies or untruths – or gets the news wrong enough – and should be disqualified?
But if we don’t draw a sharp line, do legislators really intend to promise a minimum basic income of $15,000 for anyone who wants to write about their local community?
Looking at my bottom line, I have to say it would be much more helpful if legislators would address the double-digit cost increases of health insurance for my employees. And perhaps offer aid for journalism graduates in paying off student loans. Or tackle the generally high cost of living in Connecticut compared to neighboring states. And quit wasting our time and resources by strengthening Freedom of Information Laws, speeding hearings and adding real teeth to penalties for towns and agencies that now routinely break or flout the law with impunity.
But please, please, avoid any aid that requires a clear definition of journalism worthy of public support – because there isn’t one.
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This editorial has been updated to remove comments related to The Day and its charitable trust