Online Gambling Proposed to Save US Newspaper Industry
Mort Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of "US News and World Report," says online sports betting is the way to preserve the US newspaper industry. With the economy causing papers to fold print editions, Zuckerman says the US should follow the British model and let papers take sports bets on their web sites, creating an online gambling subsidy to keep papers afloat.
Speaking in an interview with "Forbes", Zuckerman related the challenges facing publishers as the Internet changes news media and the recession causes such shocks as the shutdown of the print edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer this year, after 150 years of operation. He says online gambling could keep papers in many cities that would otherwise lose print newspapers.
"A lot of cities are going to exist without newspapers," said Zuckerman. "There is something that can be done, and the federal government ought to do it: allow sports betting on newspaper Web sites."
Zuckerman says in the interview that vested gambling and casino interests have prevented this idea from taking fruit. He notes that newspapers never pushed for the right to host sports betting because the industry was always profitable in the past.
"Plenty of British papers do this; for them it's a crucial part of their net revenue stream," the newsman asserted. "I know a major newspaper in London that makes $15 million a year from sports betting alone."
Zuckerman is also an MSNBC political analyst, chairman of Boston Properties, and publisher of the Daily News. Zuckerman did not comment on whether British soccer's Premier League felt the integrity of its games might be harmed by legal sports betting.
