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Some nordic countries subsidize their newspapers after a trend in the 60's where cities and towns lost their second local newspapers and ended up with only a si

• draugadrotten 7y ago
  BAD IDEA. As a result, big publishers sometimes purchases the second local newspaper and make it an empty shell that republishes generic content from syndicated sources, and use the ownership of the second local newspaper cash in from the free lunch. Instead of helping the small publishers, the subsidies go to the biggest creating an even worse competitive situation for small publishers. Real world Example: Sweden's media giant Bonnier News is also the LARGEST receiver of subsidies. https://www.etc.se/ekonomi/bonniers-dominans-okar-i-mediesverige https://www.etc.se/ekonomi/bonniers-dominans-okar-i-mediesve...
  • rootusrootus 7y ago
    > big publishers sometimes purchases the second local newspaper and make it an empty shell that republishes generic content from syndicated sources That sounds like Sinclair. Seems the U.S. ended up in the same place.
• nokcha 7y ago
  Exempting newspapers from sales tax seems like a good idea. Perhaps the government could go even further and match subscription fees up X dollars per year per customer, as an incentive for people to subscribe. To prevent abuse (such as kickbacks to subscribers), the government could require that participating newspaper companies limit the benefits of matched subscriptions to (1) delivery of a physical newspaper and (2) online access to the content of the physical newspaper.