Fascinating.  We just learned today that the Newspaper Association of America has to date spent over $800k in lobbying the US Senate on behalf of its members, related to ‘The Free Flow Information Act’.  The definition of the Act on government sites is as follows “A bill to maintain the free flow of information to the public by providing conditions for the federally compelled disclosure of information by certain persons connected with the news media.”.

Coming from the sales and new media side of a publishers business, the Act itself doesn’t fascinate me, but the representation that newspapers are receiving from the NAA does.

The NAA charges newspapers a decent sum in annual membership dues, which varies depending on newspaper circulation and size, so it’s good to see the dollars put forth to champion a newspaper publishers cause.

The NAA was formed on June 1, 1992, by the merger of seven newspaper associations. The associations included in the NAA merger were, the American Newspaper Publishers Association (founded in 1887), the Newspaper Advertising Bureau, the Association of Newspaper Classified Advertising Managers, the International Circulation Managers Association, the International Newspapers Advertising and Marketing Executives, the Newspaper Advertising Co-op Network, and the Newspaper Research Council.