Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 8A —
Opinion
Diary of a mad
columnist
Not for the first time, The
Chronicle is offering buyouts to
a large number of workers —
at least 125 people for a paper
that employs about 1,680 souls.
Other industries have been
through this drill, too.
Longtime staff members weigh
whether they can keep careers
in an ailing, perhaps dying,
industry.
I’ve seen some excellent
professionals walk out these
doors. It’s heartbreaking, even
though we don’t yet know how
many staff reductions might
affect the gathering of news.
Now I gird myself for the
next wave of woe as radio
talk show hosts and other crit¬
ics crow, as they do whenever
newspapers buy out workers or
suffer sharp circulation
declines.
And there will be e-mails
from fans of my column, who
are exultant at the decline of
newspapers. Do they under¬
stand that if this keeps up, then
I may not be around to write
the columns they like, not to
mention respond to their e
mails?
Apparently not, as many
volunteer the information that
they no longer buy a newspaper
— and are proud of that fact.
Conservatives like to think
that newspapers are hurting
because the liberal views they
present have driven away read¬
ers. They aren’t aware of liber¬
als who believe newspapers are
hurting because the news
media are too corporate or too
conservative. And then there’s
the laptop generation, whose
members believe newspapers
deserve to fail because they are,
well, dinosaurs, in a technolog¬
ically driven world. And didn’t
CDs give way to iPods?
Why not dispense with
paper editions — they chime
— and publish online only? A
brilliant idea, if you’re looking
for an even faster way for
papers to lose money and
shrink further. Online advertis
ing revenues, while growing,
still are but a fraction of print
advertising revenues, even
today.
Paperless is great — if you
want a two-story front page that
doesn’t break news, but only
follows it. If America goes on a
diet of free news only, eventual¬
ly readers will get what they
paid for — nothing.
Sure, newspaper publishers
haven’t helped by giving away
their product online — except in
their defense, to not do so is to
hand the online market (and its
revenue) to a rival with a robust
Internet presence. But no news
medium that depends on ad rev¬
enues to sustain its news-gather¬
ing efforts can compete with
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Saunders COLUMNIST Debra a
free ads.
The industry’s problems, of
course, lend credibility to the
views of people who gleefully
root for newspapers to fail. I’ve
met smart people who vote who
happily announce that they are
too busy to read a newspaper.
The problem is, they don’t
know what they don’t know.
Some believe that if newspa
pers go under, then the Internet
will provide.
In the case of conservatives,
they often don’t notice that
those right-leaning sites, which
they visit daily, linking provide them
with fodder by to stories
reported and written by newspa¬
per reporters. While they are
trashing newspapers, they’re
reading newspaper stories and
citing them to bolster their argu¬
ments. They may not notice if,
over time, as newspapers down
size and even close, Web sites
will be linking to fewer reliable
news reports.
And if they don’t buy a
paper, they won’t see that a
media, which at times got too
rough with President Bush and
the Republican Congress, can
be just as tough on House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and
Senate Democratic Leader
Harry Reid. And when you only
get your news from co-believ
ers, as many of the left and right
try to do, you miss things you
need to know.
Conservatives rooting for
newspapers’ demise should be
careful what they wish for. Yes,
fewer reporters mean fewer
biased stories about lesbian
immigrants fighting an unsym
pathetic establishment. But
there also won’t be as many sto
ries about sanctuary city poli
cies gone bad, the latest zany
law out of San Francisco City
Hall or the growing bite that
public employee pension sys
terns are taking out of city and
county services.
They don’t understand that
Fox News and talk radio aren’t
going to report on stories that
require local beat and reporting and
time-consuming expensive
investigation.
And there won’t be as many
nonideological stories — about
crimes or zoning or state spend
ing — until what was once a
solvable problem festers, unre
ported, into a front-page disaster.
By then, there may not be a
front page.
E-mail Debra J. Saunders
at dsamders@sfchronicle.com.
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It’s time to keep one tye on
your bank account and mother
on our friends at the state
Capitol. Times are tougi, and
Gov. Sonny Perdue, fresh off
his junket to China, is arcling
like a shark, looking foi addi
tional cash for state govern
! m ent.
Perdue fired the initiil shot
last week when he suggested
that the state end $400 nillion
j n annual property tax relief
that dates from the admnistra
| tion of Gov. Roy Barnes,
Frankly, Republican 5 erdue
I has been hostile ti) the
Democrat Barnes’ propety tax
relief since taking office, hav
ing proposed ending itin his
first budget in 2003. lerdue
vvas stopped only by a iiparti
sa n revolt among 1 eg i eta tors,
with the state sinking leeper
i nt0 the red, he’s taking aiother
shot at eliminating the tax
relief, and will likely succed.
During Perdue’s 20C6 re
election campaign, we hard
him bragging about “convertng
a deficit to a surplus,” telling us
he inherited a mess that fe’d
since cleaned up. Now, aswe
head toward the seventh legila
tive session of Perdue’s tern,
the state is likely facingits
worst budget crisis in decads.
The budget may be off he
mark by the billions, which rill
likely require Perdue and he
General Assembly to rase
taxes, cut the budget or both,
We will undoubtedly bar
f rom Perdue and tax-hikng
legislators about how “we hve
to make tough choices” nd
“we’ve done everything elseA'e
can ” before they stick tltir
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Bill
Shipp
COLUMNIST I
hands deeper into your pocket.
When you hear that
inevitable talk, remember the
list below, which is a sampling
of the narrow, special-interest
tax breaks .ha, Petdne and hts
legislative allies have provided
in recent years (with credit to
the lobbyists, who ply decision¬
makers with NASCAR tickets,
fancy dinners and, of course,
campaign contributions).
These breaks have cost the
state money while benefiting
only a few well-connected peo¬
ple and industries, and the lost
revenue will make the hit on
your wallet all the deeper next
year as you pay to make up for
them.
According to one budget
watchdog group, some of the
special-interest tax breaks in
the last few years included:
— $11.5 million for a sales
tax exemption for manufactur¬
ing machinery;
— Up to $8.7 million for a
sales tax exemption for energy
use in manufacturing;
— $4.9 million to extend
the sunset on ad valorem tax
exemption for watercraft inven¬
tory; and
— $292,000 to extend the
sales tax exemption for petrole¬
um gas and fuel used for
swine-raising purposes.
Powerful insurance lobby¬
ists have managed to score tens
6*
These breaks have
cost the state money
while benefiting
only a few well
connected people
and industries, and
the lost revenue will
mo *e Jfte hit On VOUr
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next year as you pay
to make up for
them.
of millions of dollars in breaks
as well, all in the name of eco¬
nomic development and keep¬
ing insurance jobs in Georgia.
In addition to these recent
tax breaks, there also are many
ongoing special-interest tax
exemptions, including an
exemption for sales of goods to
the Daughters of the American
Revolution, the rental or sale of
videotape to people making
movies and an exemption on
paying sales taxes for owners
of coin-operated video
machines, including, presum¬
ably, video poker.
Some especially interesting
tax exemptions are available
for the agriculture industry,
which is probably better con¬
nected than any other under the
Gold Dome, considering the
powerful elected officials who
have farming interests and the
well-connected lobbyists who
do the industry’s bidding.
Whether any of these are
touched as our political leader¬
ship scrambles for money will
be interesting to watch. The
betting here is that the ag folks
will be left alone.
One special agriculture tax
break exempts from sales taxes
the sale of seed and fertilizers.
Note that our governor just
happens to own a company
named Houston Fertilizer and
Grain. The same tax exemption
also applies to straw, which
coincidentally is the chosen
crop of Senate Majority Leader
Tommie Williams, R-Lyons.
Also included in the tax
exemptions is a long list of
agricultural machinery, much
of which now costs millions of
dollars, meaning sales taxes
paid by purchasers would be
significant. Fuel used for farm¬
ers’ irrigation systems is also
exempt from taxes.
That would sure be a nice
break if it applied when you
filled your tank at the local gas
station these days, wouldn’t it?
Just don’t expect these types
of special-interest tax breaks to
be the ones that the GOP and
Sonny choose to address when
they are constitutionally
required to reach a budget
agreement sometime in 2009.
Your property tax relief makes
a much more inviting target.
After all, if you don’t have a
lobbyist at the Capitol watching
your wallet, you’re just ordi¬
nary folks, ripe for gouging.
You can reach Bill Shipp at
P.O. Box 2520, Kennesaw, GA
30156, e-mail: shipp 1 @ bell
south, net, or Web address: bill
shipponline.com.