After a cry for help from the print media, the Dutch government has established an €8 million ($10.2 million) fund to jumpstart the search for digital and other innovative solutions to the dramatic collapse of revenues at newspapers and newsmagazines. In April, Ronald Plasterk, the country’s minister of education, culture, and science, will hear recommendations from a committee on how the money should be spent.

As in the U.S., paid newspaper circulation in the Netherlands has steadily decreased—particularly over the last five years. In the third quarter of 2008, 3.6 million newspapers (not counting free papers) were printed—2.4 percent fewer than in the same months in 2007, according to Het Oplage Instituut, which tracks these data. The industry’s financial problems have been compounded by a rapid loss of advertising, a result of the spreading American credit crisis, and by, in at least one case, failing management.

This marks the first time the Dutch print media have asked the government to help them survive. Ironically, it was Plasterk himself who provoked the request. Presenting his policy for the print media in November, he said his hands were halfway tied because government interference would compromise journalistic independence.

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