US House Speaker Urges Easing Competition Laws for Newspapers

Ailing American newspapers should be given leniency under competition laws so that they can find ways to remain viable and pursue their vital democratic role, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has argued.

In a letter to Eric Holder, the US attorney general, Pelosi argues that anti-trust laws should not prevent rival regional newspapers from exploring mergers and consolidations - a move that might also help clear the path to allowing national news organisations to collaborate on charging for their online content.

"We must ensure that our policies enable news organisations to survive and to engage in the newsgathering and analysis that the American people expect," writes Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat whose letter focuses on the fate of the San Francisco Chronicle. Its owner Hearst, which announced the closure of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's print version this week, has said it will be forced to sell or close the loss-making Chronicle if major savings cannot be rapidly achieved.

Supporters of a paid model for online news content argue that a relaxation of anti-trust laws could be the industry's saving grace. It would enable organisations such as the New York Times, CNN.com and the Associated Press to collaborate, imposing a uniform pricing system simultaneously and acting as one to demand fees from aggregators such as Google News and Yahoo, which profit from their journalism.

Similar exemptions already apply to Major League Baseball. "Washington found a way to manicure the law on behalf of our national pastime," the LA Times media analyst Tim Rutten argued recently. "Now it needs to do the same for our democracy's lifeblood."

The issue of anti-trust laws and the survival of newspapers would soon be brought before a House subcommittee, Pelosi announced.