Newspapers Need Bailout to “Cover All The News”

WASHINGTON, DC – The US Congress is considering a bailout for selected US newspapers so they will have the resources to report on all the news.  Due to recent declines in revenue, many media outlets haven’t had the money or manpower to report on events such as the recent “Climate-gate" scandal or the frequent Tea Party movements of the past year.

"Our paper has had to become a lot more selective about what we report, which means some things are being left out" said one editor, who asked not to be named because she wasn’t authorized to speak to the press.  "Right now, we just can't afford to cover all the news.  We haven't updated the public on the number of dead soldiers in Iraq since, geez - January?  We didn't have the resources to really investigate where the TARP funds went.  You wouldn't believe the trouble we had scraping together the 11 analysts to take a look at Palin’s book,” she continued, referring to the intensive efforts to fact-check Sarah Palin’s recent release “Going Rogue”.  She went on to stress the significance of this, since they had been unable to do any verification of recent books by other political figures, such as President Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton.

“Things are pretty bad right now" she concluded “We’ve even had to cancel our Kwanzaa and Ramadan parties this year.  So we’ll be having no holiday celebrations at all - it’s just work, work, work.”

The bill proposes direct subsidies to certain newspapers and extends and replaces the Senate effort to grant them tax exempt status back in March.  Unlike the recent Wall Street bailouts, however, the newspapers would not be subject to White House oversight.  A Senate staffer said, “They’re doing a great job already, folks just aren’t choosing to buy their product.  By giving them taxpayer funds directly, we’ll fix that.”