It’s been no secret in the past few years that the newspaper industry has been struggling…. It’s been no secret in the past few years that the newspaper industry has been struggling. Multiple papers have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and several have closed down entirely. Meanwhile, advertising revenue dropped more than 25 percent in 2008, according to Barclays Capital. But a new bill introduced by Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., would allow newspapers to operate as non-profit educational organizations similar to public broadcasting companies. Under the bill, newspapers could apply for 501(c)(3) status ‘mdash; a tax status which applies to public and private institutions performing religious, literary, educational or charitable service ‘mdash; which would make their advertising and subscription revenues tax-exempt. The only catch is that the newspapers operating under this distinction would be barred from endorsing political candidates or programs as a part of the IRS prohibition on 501(c)(3) organizations intervening or attempting to affect political campaigns. So the real question of the matter is, would it be worth having newspapers unable to offer opinions on important issues for the benefit of community education? It’s long been thought that free speech, and specifically a free press, is essential to the healthy functioning of a democracy. The press is generally the best outlet that people have to learn about important issues and political candidates. The freedom of the press is guaranteed even in the U.S. Constitution. In one respect, this bill erodes that freedom by placing newspapers under the purview of the tax code, so that their operations could potentially be subject to censorship by the government. A paper operating under tax-exempt status simply would not be allowed to print certain opinions under federal law. However, political endorsements is a relatively small percentage of any newspaper’s content, and it could be worth supporting newspapers as tax-exempt organizations for the myriad other services they provide. And considering that the papers would still be allowed to cover political events, even though they’d be barred from editorializing on them, it really doesn’t seem like that extreme of a trade-off. Perhaps the largest concern about the bill, then, isn’t the potential reality that newspapers wouldn’t be able to comment on political issues, but the fact that it places some of the editorial content under government control. It may not necessarily be a bad thing, but it represents a huge change to the way papers currently operate. It’s difficult to see a problem with the plan upon examination. Indeed, this could be a way to move away from a press that is largely seen as factionalized and partisan and toward something more closely resembling a purely fact-based educational information source. Then the answer to the question of whether it would be worth having newspapers exist as educational publications is an emphatic ‘yes.’ People need information to form views and lead productive lives, but they don’t necessarily need newspaper endorsements. And Cardin’s bill would allow newspapers to keep functioning as information sources, which, in the end, is what’s really important anyway.