Those immortal words – “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” – are now being spoken to newspaper owners and their employees, all of whom are desperate to survive in the Internet Age. The main voice behind the words is Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., author of proposed legislation allowing newspaper owners to restructure their properties as 501c(3) education foundations. The idea is to lure rich donors who will bail out “quality newspapers” if the government will make doing so tax deductible. What will actually happen is newspapers will become government toadies.

Newspapers are the heart of America’s greatest publishing tradition – independent voices eager to expose official wrongdoing, to shine light in dark places, to speak for ordinary people. It is no exaggeration to say that newspapers were so crucial to public debate that the American Revolution might never have happened without them. From the Republic’s earliest days, newspapers have been the watchdogs of the high and mighty, holding them to account, criticizing their actions, and even denigrating them, though usually with good reason. Policy decisions on wars, taxes, tariffs and debts have been routinely judged as well, and often even more harshly. John Jay, for example, who was one of the “Publius” trio of authors of the Federalist Papers, once complained that he could travel at night by the light of his own burning effigies after signing the Jay Treaty of 1794 with Britain.