A full conference agenda has been planned for next week's Mega-Conference in Orlando.

Safe travels to everyone! We'll see you for the opening reception on Sunday evening.

The Local Journalism Sustainability Act has sometimes been characterized as a government handout that will provide more profits to wealthy hedge funds. That is like saying that pizza (with or without the mozzarella cheese) provides sustenance to criminals and fuels their activities. Sure, criminals may occasionally eat pizza, but so do a lot of other people, including me. Saying that pizza is abetting criminals is just plain silly.

The LJSA is a bill that would provide tax credits to newspapers and other journalism organizations that are providing local news and information to their communities. The most recent budget reconciliation act, Build Back Better, included a key provision of the LJSA that would provide tax credits for newsrooms that meet the criteria. Those credits are 50% of the employees’ salary (capped at $50,000), or up to $25,000 per qualifying newsroom employee in year one, and up to $15,000 in years two through five.

The organization receives the refundable tax credits (they get the dollars whether they owe taxes or not) based on qualifying newsroom employees, so the more newsroom employees they have, the bigger the tax credit.

But, there are specific criteria that the news organization must meet that make it difficult for partisan outlets or those that don’t really cover local news to qualify.

Ken Harding has been appointed senior vice president of business effectiveness for Hearst Newspapers. The announcement was made by Hearst President and CEO Steven R. Swartz and Hearst Newspapers President Jeffrey Johnson.