Oh, Yeah: Bailouts for Newspapers!

Why not? They're bustin' their ass for Obama; shouldn't Obama put them on the payroll?

Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press.

Nicastro represents Connecticut's 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain.

That is because publisher Journal Register, in danger of being crushed under hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, says it cannot afford to keep them open anymore.

Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and petitioned the state government to do something about it. "The media is a vitally important part of America," he said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations.

To some experts, that sounds like a bailout, a word that resurfaced this year after the U.S. government agreed to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the automobile and financial sectors.

This has to be fought tooth and nail. This madness has to stop, now.

Jammie Wearing Fool notes the article refuses to mention the lawmaker calling for an unpopular bailout of an unpopular industry is a Democrat.

Funny how that works.

Think they'd mention this were Republicans calling for a bailout of the oil industry?

Thanks to CJ.

posted by Ace at 11:09 PM

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