I have a soft spot in my heart for the Journal Star. My grandfather worked there. My dad has read it every morning since before I was born. It’s been a part of my life for a long time, and I love it despite some of the ridiculous editorials that they’ve published. So when I write posts like the one I wrote a few days ago, it’s with a heavy heart. I don’t want to see the paper go down the tubes.
So I was very encouraged to hear that the Peoria Newspaper Guild is looking for a way to improve the Journal Star — by getting it away from GateHouse Media, the corporate giant that bought it from Copley Press and proceeded to run it into the ground. Billy Dennis found this article on the Seattle blog Crosscut.com. The Seattle City Council has set up a committee under council member Nick Licata to look at ways to save Seattle’s newspapers.
But the committee will hear one intriguing possibility now under consideration in Peoria, Ill. That Illinois city is wrestling with its own newspaper problems, with the Peoria Journal Star and its owner, Gatehouse Media, on the financial ropes. Peoria Newspaper Guild official Jennifer Towery will describe for Licata’s committee how a community coalition is pushing legislation to turn her city’s struggling privately owned paper into a “low profit” L3C community-owned operation.
That’s a tax term for a new hybrid business model that meets the IRS’s definition of a charity, but operates like a for-profit corporation. [… Peoria] has put together support for L3C legislation that includes four state legislators, local businesses, and a handful of bank presidents. “Their goal,” Licata says, “is to get their paper back on track.”
So it sounds like the first step is to get legislation passed in Illinois that allows for these L3C operations. Then they have to raise the money to buy the paper off of GateHouse, which means they have to convince GateHouse to sell. It’s a long row to hoe, but well worth the effort. Especially since I heard last night that the Journal Star only has eight reporters left to cover the 22 counties in their readership. Something needs to change.
Go for it, Jennifer!
Is it required to pass a law in Illinois?
“Under the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, a Vermont L3C can be used in any of the 50 states. […] The only reasons other states would need to pass anL3C act would be local pride, keeping the revenue at home, and the fact that in order for state governments to participate or certain state tax benefits to accrue, etc. some states require that the entity involved be one organized under the laws of that state.”
http://www.americansforcommunitydevelopment.org/about.html
CJ – I agree with your sentiments. It is disappointing when I pick the paper up in the morning and the sheer weight of it makes me realize how down to the bare bones it has become.
My sympathy is short-lived though when I open it up and read how absolutely biased and un-original it is when it comes to their one-sided coverage of the District 150 issues. They certainly aren’t winning friends and influencing people when they side with an obviously inept administration over the District families who expect and deserve a decent education for their children.
from what little I can find out about these L3C’s they are tax exempt businesses that can still operate as for-profits and pay their investors a return. Somebody, I guess, decides they are “socially desireable” (which is in the eye of the beholder, if you ask me. Or, put another way, my business is just as socially desirable as yours). This is bad, bad policy. We need to either abolish the corporate income tax (which I favor) or apply it to everybody, including newspapers, hospitals, and other so-called charities.
Figures this idea would come out of socialist Vermont.