Struggling newspapers don't need this help

The newspaper industry is in a struggle to save itself, and may ask for change in certain laws or policies. But when two big proprietors — Hearst and MediaNews — ask to be exempted from federal antitrust laws, they are asking for something that doesn't work.

Newspapers have received antitrust favors before. The Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 suspends the antitrust laws to allow two newspapers to combine advertising, printing and distribution. The Seattle Times was in an agreement under that law for a quarter-century. The agreement didn't work and was a drain of resources.

We note that nearly all the 28 other newspaper combinations under this law have ended, most of them in unhappy circumstances.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., recently carried the water for Hearst by asking U.S. attorney general Eric Holder not to enforce the antitrust laws so that her hometown paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, could be rescued. Presumably New York-based Hearst would do this by combining the Chronicle with Bay Area newspapers owned by MediaNews.

Holder said no. That is the right answer for American journalism.

Newspapers do need to be saved, but not as conjoined twins. They need to be financially viable and independent.