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As the local news industry grapples with financial blues, a pair of state lawmakers said Wednesday that they were introducing legislation that would create tax credits for regional media outlets and their readers.
The bill, introduced by state Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan) and Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner (D-Saratoga Springs), comes as a bid to encourage the hiring of journalists during a local news death spiral that has sapped the U.S. of an estimated quarter of its newspapers since 2004.
New York City, the nation’s media capital, has been particularly hard hit by changes in how Americans get their news, with top publications bleeding staff and smaller papers like The New York Sun and the Village Voice closing their shops. (The Village Voice has returned in a reduced form.)
Hoylman said he’s seen community papers wilt in his district, which spans from the Lower East Side to the Upper West Side, and he rued the national focus of the modern news environment.
“Not everything happens in Washington, D.C.,” Hoylman told the Daily News. “The bigger players like The New York Times have shut out most of the conversation at the community level.”
He said the level of oversight at City Hall and the state Capitol has suffered as the count of local reporters dwindles.
Lawmakers worked with the New York News Publishers Association, a nonprofit trade association, to draft the bill, Hoylman said.
The legislation would create an annual credit worth 80% of a local news subscription over its first year and 50% in the following years, according to Hoylman’s office.
Eligible news outlets would score quarterly credits amounting to half of a full-time journalist’s salary over their first year of employment and nearly a third of their salary in their next four years.
Government support for news outlets could raise questions around journalistic independence. But Woerner noted the bill was written with an eye toward local reporters and local stories.
“My hope is that we can better sustain these local papers,” she told The News. “Democracy benefits when there’s local journalism, when there’s transparency and accountability because the information is available. I don’t think that’s a partisan issue. I think that’s about making sure that people are informed.”
Hoylman painted a dire picture in New York City. And Woerner, whose district sprawls north of Albany, said the state’s smaller cities and towns suffer, too, without local journalists shining a light on government.
In particular, she highlighted challenges facing Saratoga Springs’ Saratogian and The Post-Star of Glens Falls.
“If we can do something to provide a little extra incentive to subscribe to those newspapers, if we can provide some relief in a tax perspective, based on hiring local journalists, I think our communities will be better served,” Woerner said. “And ultimately democracy will be better served.”