€ 10.000 per project on average

Can a mix of philantropy and low-profit save newspapers?

By Brigitte Alfter

BRUSSELS - 13 / 04 / 2009 - A new bill in the US state of Illinois may give new options ot save newspapers, Huffington Post writes. The law establishes a new company model, thelow-profit limited liability company or L3C, which allows to combine philantropy and low-profit business. A solution for the Chicago SunTimes and the Chicago Tribune, Huffingtong Post asks.

And on national level the Newspaper Revitalisation Act was proposed last month suggesting a similar model. The proposal was welcomed by the Newspaper Association of America, according to Editors Weblog.

In Europe the European Federation of Journalists, EFJ, recently asked European Union bodies to take action. The European Federation of Journalists asks for a debate and for a review of the EUs media policy, however no details were revealed as to the more concrete content of the needs as seen by the EFJ.

Europe has a variety of models to support the media in the member states with public money, public service models, tax reductions and so forth.