Ochazuke
No Bailout Here
By Gwen Muranaka
Saturday, May 9, 2009 

It turns out there are some problems that even Barack Obama won’t take on. White House Press Secretary Bob Gibbs ruled out the possibility of a bailout for the nation’s ailing newspa­per industry, even as the Boston Globe negotiates with its union to avoid shut­ting its doors.

During a press briefing on Monday, the Washington Post reported Gibbs’ response. He acknowledged that “there’s a certain concern and a certain sadness when you see cities losing their newspapers or regions of the country losing their newspapers,” but added “I don’t know what, in all honesty, government can do about it.”

It was a pragmatic response to an industry and its workers grasping for a solution.

There’s always been a clear hierarchy between major newspapers and small vernaculars like The Rafu Shimpo, we’re the Single A minors to their Major Leagues. However lately the problems of all newspapers, large and small, are very similar: shrinking advertising, declining circulation and in many cases, extinction.

Rocky Mountain News, where Bill Hosokawa worked as the reader’s representative, closed on Feb. 27; Seattle Post Intelligencer, where Pulitzer Prize winner Evelyn Iritani got her start, ceased its print publication on March 17. The Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times, is in bankruptcy. Watching the Los Angeles Times decline with every lost reporter, columnist and editor has been heartbreaking to anyone who remembers what it once was.

If there is a “certain sadness” as Gibbs said that cities and regions lose their newspapers, it would be a real tragedy if the few remaining newspapers that represent the voices and views of ethnic groups such as Japanese Americans were to disappear.

I think the troubles facing this industry will point to an eventual solution, even if that is different from paper to paper or community to community. One solution pointed to by some is to turn these publications into nonprofit entities.

Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) introduced a bill in March that would give newspapers incentives to restructure as educational nonprofits, offering the same status and tax incentives as public broadcasting companies.

As someone who has worked in newspapers for going on close to 20 years, I have always considered our role to be foremost one of education and information. I’m not sure if going nonprofit is the ultimate solution to the newspaper industry’s woes, but it’s nice to see others thinking about it. Often it takes a crisis to come up with the best solutions.
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Gwen Muranaka is the English Editor of The Rafu Shimpo and can be reached at gwen@rafu.com. Ochazuke is a staff-written column. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of The Rafu Shimpo.