From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. In a recent interview with the Toledo Blade and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, President Obama said that today's media is filled with too much blogosphere, too much opinion and too few facts. Many in the blogosphere were none too thrilled to read that.

Obama said he'd be, quote, happy to look at legislation that would aid newspapers.

Sounds noncommittal, but it got a lot of attention. Everyone wondered, are newspapers going to get a bailout?

CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty perfectly captured the reaction from the newspaper industry.

None of us who are journalists want to see the government get involved and become the publisher of newspapers.

No, that would be a no.

On Thursday, the Congressional Joint Economic Committee held hearings on the future of print.

Representative Kevin Brady, Republican from Texas, expressed

concern about the watchdogs of government relying on help from government. When you feel like

you're drowning, every lifeline looks good, but you have to be careful whose boat you're being

pulled into. And if it's the government's boat, you know, there's real repercussions to that from your

standpoint as well. I think we all recognize that. The Newspaper Revitalization Act introduced

last March in the Senate would give newspapers that regularly publish local, national, and

international news the option of becoming tax-exempt non-profits. Senator Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, sponsored the bill.

He says that the many problems at his local paper, the Baltimore son, inspired him.

Clearly, the Baltimore son, its parent company, is in serious trouble. The local bureaus have

been reduced dramatically. You look at the number of articles, and it's dramatically reduced.

You look at oversight that you would like to see not just on your elected officials, but on your

business leaders, or what's happening in the commercial centers, or what's happening in our

schools, or what's happening in our health centers. All that has been very much reduced,

not just in Baltimore, but around our country.

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