Prime Minister: No financial aid for online newspapers, only offline
It would be a tremendous loss if the newspapers vanished, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh told Danish journalism periodical Journalisten (The Journalist).
Therefore he wants to make sure that the Danish newspapers get financial support to secure their survival.
The same, however, doesn't apply to online newspapers. Commercial online news outlets are, according to the article in Journalisten, "left to themselves".
"We know from experience that the printed newspapers deliver most of the news for the electronic media and therefore it would be a colossal loss i the entire media picture if printed media are being forced out of the market by electronic media.
I believe that can substantiate that we for the time being have some direct and indirect aid schemes when it comes to printed media," Anders Fogh told the periodical Journalisten.
A growing number of online media sites feel it's unfair that they don'et get aid. Do they have a point in that?
»No, I actually believe they can do remarkably well online, where they enjoy a free distribution. You can, to some extend, say that the purely net based services don't have huge costs in distribution compared to the printed papers. That is exactly my point. If you have to secure fair competition you don't necessarily need the same aid schemes for the press," the Prime Minister said.
This will, from what I can make of the article, also result in that other online news/magazine sites, that don't necessarily have backing by a newspaper, won't recieve any financial aid.
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