Is this really a surprise? Obama once again is looking at taking care of another Democratic constituency:
The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.
“I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’ll be happy to look at them,” Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade in an interview.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced S. 673, the so-called “Newspaper Revitalization Act,” that would give outlets tax deals if they were to restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. That bill has so far attracted one cosponsor, Cardin’s Maryland colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D).
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had played down the possibility of government assistance for news organizations, which have been hit by an economic downturn and dwindling ad revenue.
Here’s what the president said about the newspaper industry and why he’s open to bailing it out:
“Journalistic integrity, you know, fact-based reporting, serious investigative reporting, how to retain those ethics in all these different new media and how to make sure that it’s paid for, is really a challenge,” Mr. Obama said. “But it’s something that I think is absolutely critical to the health of our democracy.”
[..]
Mr. Obama said he noted the trend. “I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding,” the President said.
Journalistic integrity? Fact-based reporting? Serious investigative reporting? Obama thinks it’s ok to bail out the newspapers in order to preserve these characteristics? Who does he think he’s kidding? If the mainstream media had done even the slightest amount of fast-based or serious investigative reporting about him and his radical past during the campaign he wouldn’t be the president right now. So he’s looking at paying them back for propping him up and unleashing their attack dogs on Sarah Palin and her family instead.
Real journalism is dead, which is why the newspaper industry is going out of business. Instead the blogosphere and talk radio are doing all the real reporting. The media refused to report on Van Jones until they were forced to. The media refused to report on ACORN until they were forced to. The whole idea that newspapers need to be bailed out because they are the only remaining vestiges of journalistic integrity and real, nose to the grind stone investigative reporting is so brazenly false, I can’t believe he actually said it with a straight face.
Update: As Lorie noted above, Andrew Breitbart is once again doing the job the mainstream media won’t. He’s expected to break another story that the vast majority of the mainstream media hasn’t touched.
