Obama “Happy to Look at” Newspaper Bailout Bills

President Obama said he is “happy to look at” bills in Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they restructure as nonprofit business. This was in a recent interview at the White House with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) introduced the “Newspaper Revitalization Act,” with Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) as a co-sponor.

From the Toledo Blade:

“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.

“What I hope is that people start understanding if you’re getting your newspaper over the Internet, that’s not free and there’s got to be a way to find a business model that supports that.”

The President also called himself “big newspaper junkie.”

(h/t The Hill)

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.