Admin. rejects antitrust changes for newspapers

The Obama administration rejected newspaper executives’ pleas to grant the struggling industry immunity from antitrust laws yesterday.

Despite falling circulation and increased competition from blogs, the newspaper industry must learn to adapt to the online environment, a Justice Department official said.

“We do not believe any new exemptions for newspapers are necessary,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Carl Shapiro told a House panel, according to the Associated Press.

Newspaper executives say antitrust laws are outdated because they don’t acknowledge online competition.

“Newspaper publishers will need the flexibility to explore new approaches and innovative business models without the delay, burdens and uncertainty created by the competition laws,” Brian Tierney, of Philadelphia Newspapers, said. He added: “The enforcement of the antitrust laws has not yet caught up to current market realities.”

Shapiro contended that antitrust policy was flexible and should be applied in a case-by-case basis.

“We believe that antitrust analysis is forward-looking and flexible enough to take into consideration the economic and technological pressures facing newspapers,” he said, according to his prepared testimony.

Meanwhile, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) said he feared that further mergers might increase the political bias of newspaper.

“Continuing the consolidation of newspapers may contribute to increasingly biased coverage,” he said. “When one company, such as The New York Times or the Tribune Company, owns papers in multiple cities, there is a risk that the editorial biases of the big city papers will find their ways into other markets,” Smith added. “We discuss the consolidation of newspapers, we must also address the larger issue of inaccurate and biased reporting that has become too common today.”