<div><p>The newspaper industry is suffering "market failure" and the government will need to help preserve serious journalism essential to democracy, an influential US congressman said Wednesday.</p><p>"The newspapers my generation has taken for granted are facing a structural threat to the business model that has sustained them," said Representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California.</p><p>"The loss of revenue has spurred a vicious cycle with thousands of journalists losing their jobs," he told a meeting on journalism in the Internet age hosted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).</p><p>Waxman, who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over the FTC, said the "depression in the media sector is not cyclical, it is structural."</p><p>"While this has implications for the media it also has implications for democracy," he added. "A vigorous free press and vigorous democracy have been inextricably linked.</p><p>"We cannot risk the loss of an informed public and all that means because of this market failure," he said.</p><p>Without endorsing any proposals, Waxman noted various proposed remedies, including new tax structures for publishers, providing non-profit status, changing anti-trust regulations or eliminating a law that bars owning a newspaper and a television station in the same city.</p><p>Acknowledging that talk of government support for the press raises "red flags," Waxman stressed it is not the job of Congress to "deny the evolution of media."</p><p>But "as we look at these various solutions, government's going to have to be involved in one way or the other," he warned.</p><p>"Eventually, government is going to have to be responsible to help resolve these issues and our whole society depends very much on reaching some resolution of the problem."</p><p>US newspapers are grappling with declining print advertising revenue, falling circulation and the migration of readers to free news online, while several major US publishers have declared bankruptcy.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=64619631&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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