Obama bailout for newspapers? Vote now!

In what some critics are referring to as an Obama bailout plan for the nation's struggling newspaper industry, there is currently a proposed bill in the U.S. Senate that would grant newspapers non-profit status. Papers who get such status would no longer be able to run endorsements, but they would be able to claim advertising and circulation revenue as tax exempt.

Known as the Newspaper Revitalization Act, this idea is nothing new here at Scooping the News or for anyone else following the search for a viable newspaper business model. We've been asking you to vote in the poll to the right for several weeks now. This Senate proposal is what we've called the "endowed fourth estate: become non-profits with endowments" business model.

Before a Senate proposal arrived, a group of investors were already considering the possibility of turning the San Francisco Chronicle into a non-profit entity. Remember that the Chronicle is currently No. 1 on our death watch list of newspapers likely to fold or go online only next. We expect an announcement about the Chronicle's future within a matter of weeks.

Meanwhile, this Newspaper Revitalization Act has been submitted to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. No hearing date for the proposal is currently scheduled. You can find the full text of the federal proposal right here.