First, this legislation, overviewed by Nieman Lab, appears to be somewhat better than the old Local Journalism Sustainability Act, harshly critiqued by me here, but that's a low bar.
It does address the issue of "pink slime" getting any money, though not really on hedge funds.
The 750-employee size limit remains unchanged and is still too large.
It does double the LJSA's 100-hours-per-quarter standard of eligibility for employee tax credits to 200, which is definitely good. (I had suggested 250, but could live with 200.)
It does not mention requiring the Ad Council to advertise in community newspapers, a blown opportunity.
So, on some big-ticket items, it's one-third better than the LJSA, or 40 percent if we split the diff on pink slime and hedge funds. Still should go back to the drawing board on the Ad Council issue. (And on the employee max size issue, of course.) And, a Congresscritter who used to be a newspaper editor shouldn't have missed that, unless Claudia Tenney thinks that's "socialism," which means that how much brainstorming she will do will be problematic.
Update, Oct. 4: NNA supports this because of tax credits to small biz to advertise in local newspapers. Also at its convention, it called on the feds to get various agencies to advertise more in local papers, but did NOT mention, at least by name in a presser I got, the Ad Council.
NNA also supports the Journalism Protection and Competition Act, S 1094, to make large social media companies pay for using newspaper content. I oppose, partially but not entirely based on what's happening in Canada with its social media journalism law.
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