Last week, Gov. Chris Gregoire became the first governor in the nation to use taxpayer money to prop up her state’s failing newspaper industry.

At the last moment in the budget process, she convinced the Legislature to include a provision that would amount to a 40 percent tax cut for the state’s newspapers and newspaper printers.

The end of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s print edition is the most recent and definitive example of newspapers’ decline. It illustrated the increasingly difficult financial challenge newspapers face as readers shift to online sources.

Clearly, there are reasons to ensure the survival of newspapers, and the governor acted out of good intentions.

Newspapers perform an absolutely essential role in our democracy. They have acted as a critical check on government power. By shining a light on corruption and incompetence, the press has helped keep the government open and accountable.

Newspapers also serve to inform and engage the public on current issues, another critical element for a democracy to succeed.

If newspapers in Washington go out of business, who will perform the essential role of a government check and public educator?

However, while protecting the press through favorable tax status may seem like a great idea in the short-term, it ultimately delays the inevitable demise of newspapers and creates other problems.

The trend in recent years has been toward online news. In late 2008, a study by the Pew Research Center examined this very topic. For the first time, the survey found that more Americans are getting the majority of their news on the Internet rather than from newspapers.

Americans are asking themselves: “Why should I pay for a subscription to the newspaper when I can get the same news on the Internet for free?”

The demand for newspapers is sinking steadily, and throwing taxpayer money at them is only delaying their inevitable demise as a prominent form of mass media and information distribution. It’s essentially a waste of taxpayer money in a recession, when we need it the most.

In addition, the role of the press as an impartial watchdog of the government is threatened when the government that is supposed to be held accountable by the press essentially helps fund it. The governor’s move will perhaps unintentionally turn the future of newspapers in Washington into a political issue. The job of reporters and editors will literally depend on the success of those who support their continued favored tax status.

Consider a situation in which there were two candidates running for governor. Candidate A supports keeping the 40 percent tax for newspapers in order to protect companies that play a vital role in the functioning of democracy. Candidate B opposes keeping the tax cuts because they are subverting the free market and using the government to pick winners and losers in a system of free enterprise.

Because the tax status is now a political issue, the newspapers and those who work for them have a vested interest in the success of Candidate A. If Candidate B wins, the newspapers will go out of business. Unfortunately, this may be the unforeseen result of Gregoire’s decision: subverting the objectivity of the media by putting its survival in the hands of the government and certain politicians. How can we expect the newspapers to investigate aggressively and act with integrity when they depend on the government for financial help?

Luckily for democracy, it’s not the demand for news that has decreased, but the demand for news in the paper format. As long as people are visiting news Web sites, the advertising revenue from those sites will increase, and then there will be money to keep the press alive and functioning — just in a different form.

While Gregoire may have the right goals in mind, we must realize that a press that depends on government handouts for its survival is not a free press at all.

Reach reporter Chris Jordan at opinion@dailyuw.com.