News industry lobbyists say Congress needs to include relief in next stimulus package

Check out the #SaveTheNews hashtag on Twitter. This week local journalists are spotlighting the work that shows how essential they are, particularly in the midst of a pandemic.The hashtag is part of a new NewsGuild campaign to convince Congress to include relief $$$ for the news industry in the next Covid-19 stimulus package. Common Dreams wrote about the guild's proposals in this story. The union wants direct grants to workers at local print and online news outlets; if not direct grants, then expanded access to the Paycheck Protection Program for news outlets; or at the very least, increased federal spending on ads in local papers to make up for recently lost revenue.The second idea, adjusting PPP because some news outlets are currently ineligible, is getting a lot of support. The basic problem is that conglomerates with lots of papers in different markets are too big to apply for PPP, but if they were allowed to apply on a per-paper basis, they'd meet the requirements. The House's Heroes Act included this adjustment, but that bill was said to be dead on arrival in the Senate.Read source here.