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Over her 50-year career, Dr. Suzanne Saueressig treated thousands of animals and transformed the Humane Society of Missouri into one of the largest veterinary practices in the Midwest. As the first female practicing veterinarian in the state, she was a true Missouri trailblazer. When Dr. Saueressig died in 2013 at the age of 88, she …

Continue reading "Missouri’s First Female Veterinarian"

Melissa Goodman of O'Fallon, MO joined the Real Rock Army today

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Return to a time when steamboats ruled the river. The one-hour narrated riverfront cruise aboard the Riverboats at the Gateway Arch explores the history of downtown St. Louis, including the […]

The post St. Louis Riverfront Cruise appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

I warned you that someday there would be a pop quiz to see if you've been paying attention to me, and today's the day. Please explain what's wrong with this infographic: The key result here is that 38% of protests turn violent if police are present, while only 7% turn violent if police stay away. ...continue reading "A pop quiz: Are police the cause of protest violence?"

There seems to be something rather specific when it comes to the current Italian government when it comes to strong-arming commerce over a protective stance on Italian cultural touchstones. This has traditionally expressed itself mostly in the food and drinks categories of commerce. Wines are particularly of note here, with several recent examples of Italy […]

At a time when dozens of Catholic parishes in the St. Louis Archdiocese are closing, a new deal to bring America’s largest Catholic graduate school of theology to St. Louis County is raising eyebrows.

St. Charles County Police are asking for your help tracking down a person of interest in a brazen burglary. The person is accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal belongings from a single home before riding off on a scooter.

Bi-State Development and Metro Transit hosted an open house for the St. Louis Metrolink Green Line project, focusing on environmental considerations and design blueprints for the $1 billion initiative.

The Gateway Pundit has filed for bankruptcy protection in a federal court in southern Florida as it faces what could be a massive defamation judgment stemming from their maligning of two Georgia election workers in the wake of the 2020 election. Founded in 2004 by brothers Jim and Joe Hoft, the St. Louis-based website has never let facts get in the way of throwing red meat to their far-right audience.  This lack-of-scruples approach won the site a big audience in the Trump years, during which they had a credentialed White House correspondent who the New Yorker described as more interested in trolling other media outlets than breaking big stories.

School leaders watched as a dramatic shooting demonstration, meant to protect students, went down inside the Sharpshooter indoor range.

Maplewood Deputy Mayor Shawn Faulkingham read a resolution that “honored, commended and thanked” Nikylan Knapper for her service as mayor of Maplewood at the beginning of the city council meeting on Tuesday (see page nine of the agenda). Knapper then thanked the council members individually. New Maplewood mayor Barry Greenberg’s pick to be the new […]

There was compelling testimony when a St. Louis Police negotiator was put on the stand during day three of the trial of Thomas Kinworthy.

New York is the first state to give local news outlets a tax credit for hiring journalists to cover community news. The legislation should be a model for other states looking to fund news outlets facing increasingly dire financial prospects. Subway Newsstand; New York, NY by John Blandino is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Journalists’ First Amendment rights seem to be constantly under threat in the United States these days, whether it’s police arresting or attacking reporters or government officials digging into their sources and editorial decisions. But one of the most alarming threats to freedom of the press today has nothing to do with the First Amendment.

The abysmal financial state of the news media industry is just as worrying as violations of reporters’ legal rights. After all, freedom of the press only really matters if there are reporters left to use it. But mass layoffs of journalists and shuttering of news organizations have led some to ask whether journalism is headed toward an “extinction-level event.”

Thankfully, policymakers are waking up to this threat to press freedom. Some are even finding creative ways to help fund local news media. Lawmakers around the country should take note.

New York law could be a model for the country

Last week, New York became the first state to give news outlets a tax break for hiring or employing journalists, after a coalition of local news organizations championed new legislation. The financial support can’t come soon enough; between 2004 to 2019, 40% of New York newspapers were shuttered.

As part of the state budget, eligible news outlets in New York could receive up to $300,000 in refundable tax credits for employees’ salaries. The legislation also splits the available tax credits between larger media outlets and those with 100 employees or fewer, ensuring that smaller news outlets have a chance to benefit.

Some parts of the New York law will be fleshed out by later regulation. For example, regulators will have to decide whether digital-only news outlets focused on the state can qualify for the tax credit. Given the important role online news sources play in informing the public, regulators should allow them to qualify.

But a law that encourages news organizations to hire more reporters can only be a good thing for journalists and for those who rely on local reporting. As Steven Waldman, the president of Rebuild Local News, a coalition of journalism organizations that supported the New York legislation, said, “An employment credit places the incentives in the right place: hiring of local reporters.”

Other content-neutral ways to fund local journalism also hold promise

The tax credit idea isn’t new. Several states have introduced similar bills to the one that just passed in New York. The federal Community News and Small Business Support Act, introduced in this Congress, would not only give a payroll tax credit to local news outlets that employ reporters in their communities but also provide tax credits to small businesses that advertise in local media.

Other jurisdictions are also experimenting with additional ways to fund local news. Lawmakers in California and New Mexico have provided additional funding for fellowships run by journalism schools in their states. An executive order in Chicago directed the city to spend at least half of its advertising budget in community news outlets, modeled on a policy already in place in New York. In Washington, D.C., City Council members introduced a bill that would give residents a “voucher” they could donate to local news outlets of residents’ choice.

While the details of these laws or bills differ, one essential feature of all of them is that they’re content-neutral. In other words, they don’t allow the government to use funding to put a thumb on the scale of news coverage. That neutrality is necessary to protect the independence of local media. Community news serves an essential role as a watchdog of local government. It must be insulated from threats that funding provided by tax credits or other government-involved methods could be slashed or withdrawn as punishment for publishing news that powerful people dislike.

According to Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, one-third of the U.S. newspapers in operation in 2005 will be gone by the end of this year. The silencing of so many journalists is a press freedom emergency, and we need lawmakers to act now. The Community News and Small Business Support Act, for example, was introduced in July 2023 but hasn’t been advanced in the House since.

Thankfully, we have plenty of models for how governments at the state and local levels can help shore up funding for local news in ways that maintain journalistic independence. Other states must follow New York’s lead and help fund local news.

Editor’s note: Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) is based in New York and operates the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker as a news site. FPF is evaluating whether the Tracker meets eligibility requirements for the New York tax credit discussed in this post.