Yes, we are a large corporation. I can tell you that we have a number of newspapers that are operating at a loss. I am not talking about tens or hundreds of dollars, but millions.
The corporation has a social role to play as a civic partner, but it also has to answer to shareholders. I am the head of a public corporation. When the numbers don't add up anymore, we have to address it. We try to group titles together. For example, a newspaper that served just one municipality will have to serve two or three at the same time.
We are in a transition. It's true that we do very well selling print advertising because we have been doing it for 40 years and because we have improved our practices. We need time to adapt to the Internet. Consumers want our product. Citizens and readers demand local content. They call saying they want more. The demand is there, but we need time to transition to a digital company, and I think we can get there. People are following us, in the print edition, on the website, on tablets, and on mobile apps. We are inventing a new business, which poses certain challenges. Whereas in the past, we managed news organizations, we must now in a sense become technology-based organizations.
We have two requests. First, we need temporary assistance for content production; second, we need financial incentives to invest in technology, to create new jobs in this area, and to purchase software applications.
Could some of our expenses be reimbursed as tax credits? We are trying to adapt in order to keep local news alive. We are not asking for a single dollar that we are not prepared to invest ourselves.