A Modest Proposal?

The hardcore cynical could say "newspapers are non-profit organizations" but Editor & Publisher presents a legitimate case for newspaper publishers to become non-profits:

Let's dream for a moment about newspapering freed from the profit motive. Purists may argue that newspapers, like any other enterprise, should have to earn their way in the marketplace, and if they fail the market test, so be it.

But in fact newspapers, as important to the civic health of our society as public transportation, have a claim on public allegiance that goes beyond financial measure. Does anyone believe that our society is better, our civic virtue enhanced, by the failure of the Washington Star and the New York Herald Tribune and the Chicago Daily News and all the other fine dailies that have perished for purely financial reasons?

To be sure, if advertisers continue to pare their commitment to newspapers, they may become less interesting to read and less useful. But if their professional staffs can be preserved, perhaps even augmented as their companies capitalize better on the Internet, newspapers' freedom and opportunity to report the news, especially the sensitive, prickly news, can only be enhanced, freed of any concern about offending advertisers.