ALBANY, NY-- (AP) Concerned that News Corp.'s New York Post would move its printing presses from New York City to New Jersey, the state's economic development agency has offered the newspaper nearly $13 million. The grant, to be voted on at a meeting today (20 July, 1998), would be one of the largest ever from Empire State Development Corp., the Times Union of Albany reported Friday.

Empire State Development would commit the money to keep 807 full-time jobs in the state with hopes that the newspaper will create 100 more positions by 2002, officials said. The Post has said it needs color-printing capabilities to compete in New York City. The state would purchase the Walnut Ave. Depot in South Bronx from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for $11.5 million and then sell it to Harlem River Yard Ventures for $3.5 million. Harlem River Yard Ventures is a subsidiary of the Galesi Group, which plans to build the plant for the Post and lease it to the paper for 45 years.

The total commitment to the Post would amount to $12.9 million for site acquisition and preparation. The deal was approved May 20 in a public meeting, said Caroline Quartararo, a spokeswoman for Empire State Development. Now it goes before the state Public Authorities Control Board.

Last month, America's drug czar, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, stood alongside President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich to announce a five-year, $1-billion TV ad campaign urging teenagers to "say no to drugs" like marijuana, cocaine and heroine. The commercials are far from perfect: They fail to target alcohol abuse and say nothing about drunk driving, for example. But the biggest problem with McCaffrey's latest campaign is the $1 billion being paid to TV networks out of taxpayer money. This is a gargantuan sum for network air time that was once provided without charge as a public-interest payback for the right to use the airwaves, which belong to the public. (Which, of course, is beside the fact that $1 billion could go a long way if spent on a program with some real substance, like drug detox centers that actually enable drug addicts to get medical attention. WFI Editor)

Broadcasters cited their faithful obedience to that obligation in 1996 when Congress was preparing to sell a part of the airwaves in an auction expected to yield up to $70 billion for taxpayers. Congress was persuaded to give them these airwaves, gratis, in exchange for an agreement to meet additional public-interest obligations, to be determined later by a Federal Communications Commission panel. They also promised to return the spectrum space by 2006. Since then, a coalition of TV networks represented by the National Assn. of Broadcasters has retreated from both of those commitments. Last year, it persuaded Congress to pass a bill adding so many conditions for returning the airwaves that it's now reasonable to question whether they will ever be given back.

The broadcasters have been fighting the FCC public-interest panel ever since Clinton established it last year. Last week, one broadcaster boasted to the trade journal Communications Daily that the panel will never require any new obligations, that it will "fizzle out and be a bunch of nothing" instead. Broadcasters have not only refused to assume new public-interest obligations, they have quit honoring some old ones. As former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt puts it, prime-time public-service announcements "have dried and up and disappeared like rain in the desert."

SOURCE: Welfare for a Billionaire is reprinted from the article entitled, "New York Post Offered $13 Million Grant to Remain in State," from the Wall Street Journal, 20 July, 1998, West Coast Edition. The Public Interest in Television is excerpted from the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Edition, editorial "TV Snubs the Public Interest," 24 August, 1998. These articles are excerpted in the public service of the national interest of the American people.