OUR BLOGGERS ARE SAYING…

Mining's fair share?

Columnist Geoff Schumacher cites figures from The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, which is considering a 2010 ballot initiative to increase taxes on the state's mining industry:

-- From 2000 through 2007, the mining industry in Nevada extracted and sold gold worth $25.5 billion, and paid taxes to the state general fund totaling $125.3 million, an effective gross state tax rate of one-half of 1 percent.

-- Mine owners are allowed to write off expenses as deductions. Over the last eight years, the Nevada mining industry has deducted 79 percent of the value of gold production, and paid taxes only on the value of the remaining 21 percent.

-- Nevada's two largest gold mines, the Barrick Goldstrike mine and Newmont's Carlin Trend project, have reported zero taxable values during years when the mines have produced gold worth a half-billion dollars or more.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/schumacher/.

Which way is truly fatal?

In Part 19 of his continuing series, "Information wants to be free, reporters want to be paid," Editor Thomas Mitchell writes:

Why is it that when the self-appointed Internet visionaries look down their noses at the troglodytes in the newspaper business who cling like rubes to the quaint notion that their news content has actual value, the phrase invariably used is: "fatally short-sighted"?

Why is it never postulated that giving away one's product for free to people who disdain the associated advertising is "fatally long-sighted" or "fatally delusional" because all of your customers are basically shoplifters?

Walter Hussman, owner and publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock, is largely credited with refusing to embrace the free online news model, forcing customers to either pay for an online subscription or keep their print subscriptions, where the advertising rates far exceed those found online.

His paper's Web site is mix of free and subscriber-only content, akin to The Wall Street Journal.

Hussman and Mike Potts, who maintains a blog called "Recovering Journalist" recently discussed the paid vs. free business model at a meeting of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association.

Potts reported:

Hussman is "choking access to his Web site simply to force readers to keep buying the Little Rock paper. When the Democrat-Gazette Web site was free (through 2002), he got sick of people thanking him for making it possible for them to not buy the paper, so he decided to tilt the balance back in favor of print by charging for Web access. His justification was, and still is, that the ad revenue from print runs an order of magnitude or so higher than what he can get selling Web ads. Why kill the golden goose?

"If nothing else, that's a better motivation for publishers to charge for Web content -- to protect print revenue -- than the usual hope that Web fees will bring in new revenue. Point to Hussman.

"But I worry that the Democrat-Gazette publisher is being fatally short-sighted. His strategy may be propping up circulation, but print advertising revenue is declining precipitously, even in Little Rock -- even with its against-the-grain strategy, the paper has had to do two rounds of layoffs since the first of the year."

Later, Potts makes what I think is his strongest point: "On some level, I think Hussman's experiment is a valuable one, and it would be nice to see other, reasoned attempts at subscription news products just to see what does or doesn't work."

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/mitchell/.

A threat that worked

Columnist Jane Ann Morrison writes that although Bob Miller was considered an ally of Nevada's gaming industry during his 10 years as governor, he didn't always toe the industry line:

For example, my (recent) column about Paula Coughlin-Puopolo prompted him to share a story I'd never heard before, where he not only bucked the gaming industry, he thwarted it.

In 1995, Hilton Hotels Corp. wanted a bill that would have saved the gaming company $5 million. ...

The tort reform bill advocated by GOP Sen. Mark James and lobbyist Harvey Whittemore contained language that would have retroactively taken away Paula Coughlin-Puopolo's $5 million jury verdict.

The language was subtle, almost buried, but The Associated Press's longtime bureau chief Brendan Riley broke the story of the bill and it quickly went national. The Nevada Legislature was considering screwing a woman out of $5 million a jury said she deserved. Foul play.

"I called in the proponents and said if that bill proceeded one more day, I'd publicly indicate it would be vetoed," Miller recalled Thursday. The bill was not in the best interest of Nevada and it was inhumane, Miller said.

Coughlin-Puopolo won the jury award in 1994 after suing the resort company in the aftermath of the 1991 Tailhook convention, a rowdy, raunchy annual event at the Las Vegas Hilton. She sued after she was molested by drunken Navy aviators on the third floor as part of a tradition called "the Gantlet." ...

Miller said the tort reform bill was based on "just pure greed and I said I'd not tolerate legislation based strictly on greed."

His threat worked. The Hilton team backed off, without explaining they had been taken to the woodshed. The language was removed and Coughlin-Puopolo received her $5 million ... .

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/morrison/.