Seattle Times, "Cantwell sponsors tax break package to bolster local media."
It appears local newspaper subsidy is the theme, although "media" is used to fuzz things which could be made clearer.
FOX has a chain of local outlets, so would FOX qualify, or is the aim to help suffering local newspapers, which is not that hard a thought to articulate. The intent can be inferred circumstantially, when the report states -
The bill, called the Local Journalism Sustainability Act of 2021, would create new tax credits for subscribers to local news publications and small businesses that buy advertising in local newspapers, radio and television stations. Another tax credit would subsidize local media outlets’ hiring and retention of journalists.
[...]
One tax credit, for news consumers, would cover up to $250 in subscription costs for five years. Another, for businesses employing up to 50 people, would defray up to $5,000 spent on advertising in local news outlets, including newspapers, television programs, digital-only news sources and radio shows, for five years.
The third credit would give local news outlets a big tax break for every journalist they employ, up to $25,000 per journalist the first year after the bill’s passage and up to $15,000 per year in the subsequent four years.
It’s not yet clear how much the tax break package could cost. But previously, Cantwell has said she planned to seek $2.3 billion in tax breaks to support the local news industry.
Cantwell has been a prominent advocate for local news organizations on Capitol Hill. Last fall, she released a report slamming big tech companies for decimating local news outlets. Earlier last year, she added a provision to the COVID-19 Economic Relief Bill that made local news outlets eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program.
The Seattle Times, which received $10 million in Paycheck Protection Program funds last year, has also been at the forefront of efforts to direct federal aid to newsrooms. The paper has spent $120,000 in the past nine months asking lawmakers to appropriate funds for local news outlets, according to federal lobbying disclosures.
So, the host of FOX TV outlets, presumably each being an LLC or regular corporation for liability limitations, what might they get? Especially when the term "journalist" is used, where FOX talking heads are more propagandists than journalists, unless the term "journalist" is used elastically to include both.
Also, can you get out too big a crying towell for a firm dumping $120,000 on lobbyists? Yes, Google spends more to lobby, there is scale to expenses for such a practice, and Google clearly has more to spend (waste?) in such a fashion.
Still, local papers suffer. They carry nationwide feeds as a way to lessen expenses, and for local issues they generate coverage from local staff employees.
Finally, keeping local news outlets viable is a good idea, even if it means Bezos gets yet another tax break, since the Washington Post is likely included in the umbrella benefits aimed at suffering outlets. At least WaPo people don't have to pee into bottles as Jeff's Amazon non-union packaging-and-shipping employees do, to meet criteria set for job retention productivity. Presumably so, but Jeff is as Jeff does. (Did he take along a pee-in bottle during the Blue Origin thing?)
With the new Amazon CEO from AWS, the web services part of the business, what might change? Presumably AWS employees do not have severe robot-supervised productivity monitoring constraints as the grunts in shipping do, so will the new boss change practices or not? One thing is certain, a "bottle break" is just less a concession to physical needs than allowing time for a "bathroom break."
Being fair to Bezos, Amazon is paying at least fifteen bucks an hour, where others pay less. Also, WaPo has not deteriorated from penny-pinching while under Bezos' control. The man is not being a Rupert Murdoch, which is another giant positive.
Bezos seems both more enigmatic and brighter than Bill Gates. He built what he did without old Seattle money in the family backing him up; without largess from IBM at a time when IBM cared more about antitrust enforcement pressures than owning the future of the desktop.
____________UPDATE____________
However, Bezos at his best owns more than he can enjoy. Spending a fortune to launch himself into suborbital "Gee, look down there" bullshit stunts proves he owns too much.
DWT -
The end result of this is that our constantly corrosive ever-mounting tax breaks for corporations and people like Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk is that the results of years and years of less money being available for child care and higher education for the rest of us is taking its toll on this country's position in the world while dumbing its citizens down which is "probably" the goal anyway. I've said for over 40 years, it's all about creating a world of lords and serfs. Well, here we are. We can just look out the window and see a feudal world over on the horizon. That's what the likes of Jeff Bezos want and see when they look down on us from space. That is their vision.
Let me put this another way: An increase in taxes of just 2 cents per tax dollar for Jeff Bezos and anyone else that has $50 Billion dollars or more would not be at all painful to them no matter how much they squeal like little piggies. In the case of Jeff Bezos, he would pay $5.4 Billion dollars on his total fortune of $181 Billion dollars. Within about one week, his remaining money would have earned that $5.4 Billion dollars back and he would again have his addictively self-aggrandizing security blanket of $181 Billion dollars. He could then watch that amount soar over $200 Billion dollars in a matter of just months. That kind of money makes money without effort. Don't shed a tear for Jeff Bezos. Tax him. The same tax on America's 100,000 richest families would raise about $3 Trillion dollars. Child care, nursing home money, infrastructure, and even tuition-free public college and/or a technical school education would all be within reach. Not doing this amounts to class warfare. Not doing this is continued economic suppression that goes hand in hand with voting suppression.
Lords and serfs? "Lord Jeff" is a few letters off from the Conrad novel we all read in high school.
Are they reading Conrad anymore? Or contemporary stuff? I remember the days when CRT meant cathode ray tube, and BLM was the Bureau of Land Management. How do YOU measure progress?