The 2025 New York State budget approved on Saturday includes elements of the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, providing a payroll tax credit for local news outlets — a lifeline for a vital but struggling industry that benefits every state resident.
Over the past quarter century, traditional revenue sources for community newspapers have been greatly diminished as international conglomerates have largely gobbled up the advertising business and moved it online. Largely as a result of this shift, between 2004 and 2023, 2,627 weekly publications closed or merged with other papers between 2004 and 2023.
Some papers that survived have become husks of their former selves after being bought up by investors that have gutted newsrooms and replaced local journalism with generic “articles” that have nothing to do with the places where the readers live.
The fact is, even as traditional print media businesses have added local news websites to their repertoires, the growth of online ad revenue has come nowhere close to making up for the decline in print ad revenue. It is unsustainable, and during the COVID pandemic, even more newspapers that were holding on by a thread were forced to shutter, in spite of stopgaps like the Paycheck Protection Program.
The Local Journalism Sustainability Act, like the Paycheck Protection Program, is meant to be temporary. News outlets do not want their survival to depend on the whims of the state budget process indefinitely, and this is not a measure to delay the inevitable. It is an opportunity for local news outlets to invest in their futures, to transition from struggling businesses to healthy businesses.
The act provides $30 million a year so that each eligible news outlet can receive a 50 percent refundable credit on the first $50,000 of a journalist’s salary, up to $300,000 per outlet. Of the $30 million, $4 million is earmarked for incentivizing news outlets to hire new journalists.
It is a small price to pay for maintaining and growing local journalism across the state, and will save taxpayers in the long run, as studies have found that when a community loses its independent newspaper — its watchdog — taxes go up and malfeasance benefits from being able to operate in the darkness.
The Express News Group is proud to have joined the more than 200 news organizations that make up the Empire State Local News Coalition and advocated for the assistance provided by the Local Journalism Sustainability Act. The coalition’s success will have a tangible impact in newsrooms on the South Fork and statewide — and news consumers will be so much better for it.
The Urgency of RealThe Hamptons International Film Festival typically takes up a lot of oxygen in the fall on the South Fork, but it’s worth celebrating a slightly smaller but just as vital event in late autumn: the Hamptons Doc Fest. Running this...
Proceed With CautionOverlay districts are a common zoning tool used by many municipalities. Southampton Town has used them to varying degrees of success — the aquifer protection overlay district has been a winner; a downtown overlay district in Hampton Bays less so...
Sign the BanPity the poor horseshoe crab. It is, without question, a survivor almost beyond compare. Consider this: There are fossils of the creature dating back 445 million years. Dinosaurs arrived about 200 million to 250 million years ago — which means...
Gold Stars and Dunce Caps⭐️ : To Cami Hatch, for reminding everyone why learning to swim and lifeguard training are important. The East Hampton graduate, now a University of Tennessee student, has been studying in Italy and was visiting Malta recently when she heard...
Landmark StatusAt the Sag Harbor Cinema on Saturday, a group of admirers came together to pay tribute to a local legend. Karl Grossman recently retired from teaching, which offered an opportunity to gather in his honor and express appreciation for a...
Behind the MasksU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions are taking place across the United States, and not just in urban areas, as we discovered on the South Fork last week. But the most alarming thing about ICE raids is the aggressive nature,...
Stop the HungerSetting aside politics for a moment, the federal government shutdown, now in its fifth week, is having significant consequences. A Washington Post story last week estimated that it will cost the economy up to $14 billion. The Congressional Budget Office...
Expect DelaysAnyone who commutes east and west on the South Fork daily, or who needs goods or services that come by truck — so, really, everyone — endured several days of stress. New York State and Suffolk County officials were able...
