France's Bailout NYT

January 24, 2009
France Expands Its Financial Support for Newspapers
By ERIC PFANNER
PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced new financial aid for the country’s newspapers on Friday, but stopped short of the overhaul that analysts say is needed to revitalize the sector.

Mr. Sarkozy promised a variety of aid, including tax breaks for delivery services. In an effort to help newspapers through the recession, Mr. Sarkozy said the government would double the amount of advertising it did in print and online newspapers.

“It is the state’s primary responsibility to respond to an emergency,” he said, “and there is an emergency caused by the impact of the collapse of advertising revenue.”

The French government’s support, which totals about 280 million euros, or $362 million, a year, would be increased by about 200 million euros a year for three years under Mr. Sarkozy’s plan.

The proposal included one unusual measure aimed at attracting young people to newspapers: giving 18-year-olds free subscriptions to the printed publication of their choice. The program would to be financed jointly by the government and publishers.

In the United States, media specialists are divided on whether the government could or should help the efforts.

Support from the government could “impugn the perception of the public about the coverage of that newspaper,” said Scott Bosley, the executive director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. “Trust is all we have, and it’s hard-earned and hard to keep now. It would add another degree of difficulty to that.”

Alex S. Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, said the government had always lent support to newspapers, offering them discounted postal rates, for instance.

“A friendly postal rate is something that people don’t pay much attention to, but a direct subsidy of newspapers, by buying every college student a newspaper, would raise hackles,” Mr. Jones said, adding that he thought it was unlikely the federal government would create a program similar to France’s.

While newspapers everywhere are facing difficulties, the state of the French press is particularly dire. According to the World Association of Newspapers, the per-capita circulation of paid-for dailies in France is about half that of papers in Germany or Britain.

The help may buy newspapers some time, but will not solve their problems, analysts said.

“This is not the great reform we were waiting for,” said Emmanuel Schwartzenberg, a former media editor at Le Figaro and the author of a book on problems facing the French media.

Stephanie Clifford contributed reporting from New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/business/media/24ads.html?_r=1&ref=business&pagewanted=print