Senate hears a dim forecast for newspapers' future

WASHINGTON — A Senate panel on Wednesday looked into the question of whether struggling newspapers should be allowed to operate as nonprofits similar to public broadcasting stations.

"While the newspaper industry is in the midst of major transition, we need to protect and nurture the information-gathering abilities that currently reside with newspapers," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said in remarks prepared for delivery to a subcommittee of the Senate's commerce committee.

Under a bill proposed by Cardin, 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.

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.

"This approach is certainly no panacea," Coll said in prepared remarks. "Even in the best case, very few of them can be expected to make this transition to nonprofit strategies."

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the chairman of the Senate Communications, Technology and the Internet Subcommittee, said that layoffs, closings and cutbacks have turned the nation's newspapers into an "endangered species" as readers and advertisers rush to Web sites.

Kerry said steps must be taken so that news media can stay diverse and independent.

"As a means of conveying news in a timely way, paper and ink have become obsolete, eclipsed by the power, efficiency and technological elegance of the Internet," Kerry said as he opened the hearing. "But just looking at the erosion of newspapers is not the full picture; it's just one casualty of a completely shifting and churning information landscape."

Kerry said he was concerned that traditional journalistic standards on fairness and accuracy could suffer as newspapers falter.

"Will the emerging news media be more fragmented by interests and political partisanship?" he asked. "There also is the important question of whether online journalism will sustain the values of professional journalism, the way the newspaper industry has."

The Boston Globe in Kerry's home state is the latest major paper facing the threat of closure unless it can cut costs. The Globe and its largest employees union reached a tentative deal early Wednesday on concessions that union officials hope will keep the 137-year-old newspaper publishing.