Of Car-Makers And Newspapers

So young people aren't reading newspapers. French President Nicholas Sarkozy has a plan - the French government "will give teenagers celebrating their 18th birthday a free, yearlong subscription to any general news daily of their choice. The publisher is to give the newspapers away, while the state pays for the deliveries."

Sarkozy argues that:

"the measures are needed because the global financial crisis has compounded woes for a sector already suffering from falling ad revenues and subscriptions.

That initiative appeared designed to assuage industry fears that young readers don't share the same appetite for print media that their parents and grandparents have, denting current and future revenues."

So is this just an attempt to prop up a dying industry?

"The initiative is designed to help the sector over three years 'to modernize and invest in the print media sector in exchange for important structural reforms,' he said. The measures he announced Friday largely came from recommendations in a three-month study into the industry's health that was released on Jan. 8. The study also recommends that newspapers restructure their finances and that journalists be better trained for multiple forms of media, including online."

And yet... the newspapers have waited until now to do this? I suppose the US car industry has made similar arguments in asking for government bail-out.