The Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow individual papers serving communities to claim 501(c)(3) status because of their educational mission.
Like other nonprofits, newspapers that elect to go that route would not be allowed to make political endorsements. "You can cover elections, you just can't endorse," he said.
Cardin said he came up with the nonprofit idea after talking with people who share his concern about the fate of newspapers.
"There have been different groups in different communities that have tried to look for alternative ways to keep papers afloat that I've talked to," he said.
He wasn't naming names, however. All he'd say was: "I've had conversations with different people in different cities."
I asked Ted Venetoulis, the former Baltimore County exec who leads a group interested in buying The Sun, if he'd put Cardin up to it. He wouldn't say.
"There has been a discussion across the country, and we certainly have participated in that discussion," he said.
'Citizen Schaefer' - moving vans and all
MPT promised a "warts and all" biography of William Donald Schaefer. So the "walk again" episode made the cut. So did a snippet with former Gov. Parris Glendening saying Schaefer is "not a forgiving person."
But the part that really made the Schaefer-friendly crowd recoil the other night during a private screening of Citizen Schaefer? Old TV news footage of the Mayflower moving vans sneaking the Colts out of town. People actually hissed.
Most of the documentary, which airs March 30 on MPT, shows the former mayor, governor and comptroller in his seal-pool-diving, harbor-transforming glory. It seemed to go over well with the 200 people gathered at the Charlestown retirement community auditorium, including Schaefer, who entered the room in a wheelchair but stood to take a regular seat.
"You all can go home now," he joked when he arrived. "I have no idea what we're doing here."
Among those in the audience: Former Gov. Marvin Mandel, state schools chief Nancy Grasmick, former Maryland House Speaker Cas Taylor, lobbyist Bruce Bereano, longtime Schaefer aides Mike Golden and Lainy LeBow-Sachs, MPT President and CEO Robert Shuman, patron of the arts Clarisse Mechanic and former Sun editorial cartoonist Kevin Kallaugher.
