Connecticut Government Bails Out Newspapers

from the will-it-impact-coverage? dept

Fri, Jan 16th 2009 4:10pm — Mike Masnick

A few readers have sent in the news that Connecticut lawmakers have stepped in to save two newspapers in the state, that were about to be shut down. This is raising all sorts of questions about the separation of government from the press. What's scary is that just a few years ago, such an idea was used as satire. Then it became a serious suggestion and now it's happening. Of course, the big question is about how this will impact coverage. It is possible for the government to own a newspaper and still have that newspaper report critically on that government... but it's definitely harder, and a lot of people may wonder about how closely the papers will monitor government officials.

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Filed Under: bailout, connecticut, government, newspapers

26 Comments

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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 16 Jan 2009 @ 4:12pm

Heh.
I bet John Rowland is wishing he thought of this.

(Google is your friend.)
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DueDoe, 16 Jan 2009 @ 4:53pm

Banks
Before long We The People will own a lot of big banks and the little banks get loans from the big ones. Wonder if it will make it easier to get a low interest business loan without dealing with the SBA clowns???
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2009 @ 4:54pm

Change
This is the "change" we've been promised.

Change from capitalism to socialism.
Change from freedom to equality.
Change from gov watchdog to obedient pet.

I "hope" everyone's happy!
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2009 @ 4:59pm

Re: Change
You do realize, that most of this 'socialism' was initiated and enacted by a Republican president.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2009 @ 5:05pm

Re: Re: Change
Yeah, you're right but since when has any political party been interested in preserving that status quo.
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socialist pig, 16 Jan 2009 @ 5:09pm

Re: Re: Change
of course you realize this socialism was put in place by a democrat congress and an undermined hamstrung president
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Dale, 16 Jan 2009 @ 5:34pm

government newspaper
This bail out fever has hit an all new high if this true.

Freedom of the press is a constitutional right as with religion. Government must not have any pull one way or the other with either.

It is better to let the newspapers close than have a propaganda tool at their disposal.
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holy crap, 16 Jan 2009 @ 5:37pm

Re: Re: Re: Change
Wow ... I know I shouldn't respond to ridiculous comments made by ill informed self righteous trolls.

Do you have any idea what the definition of socialism is ?
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Reed, 16 Jan 2009 @ 7:29pm

If only!
If only someone had bailed out the horse whip manufactures, we could still have horse and buggies on the road.

That's ok though, at least we will still have newspapers in Connecticut. Considering that no one under the age of thirty relies on newspapers for information points to why this bailout is so important...

Really, I almost want to start a failing business model just so I can get bailed out. Seems to be the new way of doing business in the United Corporations of America.

One nation under fascism with credit and bailouts for all!
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alex, 16 Jan 2009 @ 8:01pm

Hypocrisy
Free market capitalists are the most hyporctical group in the world. It turned out everybody cheated, everybody lied, risk was spread everywhere, it has all been a ponzi scheme.

Then we go with the free market solution for a single large institution, Lehman, and its failure triggers a massive global meltdown. The free market is a powerful thing.

And the had-been survival of the fittest jokes beg for money. They beg the government to save them, please, they are too big to fail. It is the champions of free-market uber succes who led us to whatever comes next.

Classical economics is like classical music, old. It is old men who want to be the richest and hold on to power til they die. So they insured their sick socio-pathetic livelihoods of self-righteousness and gross overindulgence, by holding the fate of the world hostage, ha.

Stop talking ideologies, fundamentalism is for the birds. Who ever said freedom meant being able to own 5 houses, planes, billions? A gay couple cannot marry, while all the Bernie MAdoff's and corporate titans demand their right to borrow 100x what they possess and bet it on garbage they invented. Land of the free.

Nobody reads newspapers anyway, who cares what they say?
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2009 @ 9:07pm

Class Warfare
privatized profits
socialized debt
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Jeffry Houser (profile), 17 Jan 2009 @ 5:56am

Despite the headline in the Fox News site; the actual report does not use the term bailout. They are offering incentives. Doesn't government offer such incentives to public / private businesses all the time [at both the local and federal level]?
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2009 @ 7:06am

Pravda

Izvestiya Sovetov Narodnykh Deputatov SSSR

Maybe we can have Bill Ayers as the Editor-In-Chief?
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Solzynitsan, 17 Jan 2009 @ 9:45am

Can You Spell CCCP?
Soviet Union anybody? It didn't die - it moved to the North American continent.

A Republican President may have started it, but it was approved by a Democratic controlled Congress and it's going to be made more prevalent by the new Messiah - er, President.

In Connecticut they're all Communists anyway.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2009 @ 12:37pm

Re: Can You Spell CCCP?
and in related news people continue to troll their perverted personal views on internet blogs

film at eleven
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country going to HE*L in a handbasket, 17 Jan 2009 @ 2:17pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Change
yeah...two words

Barak Obama
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Corrupticut, 17 Jan 2009 @ 2:52pm

CT Gov't bails out failing newspapers
Bailout or incentives it makes no difference CT Government controls its infrastructure including the media that's why it's the most corrupt State in the Union and its the template for other states.

We are not a FREE society. The PEOPLE have to wake up and take our Government back. Sign petitions and send them to your Legislators; they won't respond effectively so keep harassing them on a Public Forum. Start up rallies; Picket your Legislative Building. If we want CHANGE, we as a society have to fight for it and stop expecting State Government to look after the public's best interests vs their own.

There will be a rally at the Capitol in Hartford, CT on February 7th; 1pm; be there!
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Seamus McCauley (profile), 19 Jan 2009 @ 3:00am

BBC?
"It is possible for the government to own a newspaper and still have that newspaper report critically on that government(?)"

By most definitions the government "owns" the BBC in Britain, since the BBC is funded via a hypothecated tax on all British TV owners that the BBC has to renegotiate with the government every ten years. It's impossible to say, of course, whether BBC news would be even more critical of the government under some hypothetically different funding arrangement but under the current arrangement it's pretty far from being a mere pro-government shill.
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directory, 19 Jan 2009 @ 5:23am

Won't they still go under????
Bailouts aren't the answer.
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Oh Really Now, 19 Jan 2009 @ 5:52am

But what about the telegraph industry? Or the smoke signals companies?

I can't afford my can on a string, either.

Obviously, I'm asking why bail out/preserve dying forms of communication.
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Joe the Taxpayer, 19 Jan 2009 @ 10:26am

Re: Hypocrisy
It was government intervention, forcing the banks to make bad loans to inner-city folks, in the name of "affordable housing", which caused the failure.

Hardly free-market.
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Tony, 19 Jan 2009 @ 10:48am

Re: Hypocrisy
Of course, REAL "free market capitalists" are ALSO saying that the companies that screwed up should be allowed to pay the price of their failure. Failure is an integral part of the free market - and that's the part that's missing.

It's not the free market capitalists who are trying to prevent companies from failing.
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joe88, 12 Feb 2009 @ 9:53pm

hi
hi,
No matters if the market has to face the failures. It is the part of the business.

joe
FSBO
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stellaf, 12 Feb 2009 @ 11:00pm

Hi,
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jeri, 10 Mar 2009 @ 8:21pm

Re: Re: Change
Of course Bush started this mess, but that doesn't mean Obama has to add to it! Who cares who started it (are you a third grader?). I just want the govt, whoever it is comprised of, to get its big fat nose out of my life!
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seibert, 28 May 2009 @ 12:26am

about
The people are losing their moral while becoming modern. The society needs to be attentive that moral values. Well things needs to be modernized but keeping intact with moral values.

seibert

mls
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