And so the newspaper carnage continues with reports that the Ann Arbor News will fold after 174 years of operations and news that the Daily Mail in England will cut 1000 jobs because advertising is drying up.

Now Reuters reports that US Senator Benjamin Cardin has introduced a bill that would allow newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax lurks. In a nutshell, the Newspaper Revitalization Act allows newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the US tax code. That gives them a similar status to public broadcasting companies. It means that advertising and subscription revenue, the life-blood of papers, would be tax exempt. The snag is they would not be allowed to endorse candidates.

This is a desperate and it's not one that's in the public interest. Newspapers are an important vehicle that help shape the public's views and turning them into non-profits, in effect supported by taxpayers, undermines their independence. It also opens the door for Federal officials to grill proprietors and journalists when they think the reporting is slanted, Soviet style. And not allowing them to endorse candidates amounts to censorship.