Media roundup: Newsroom tax credit moving; Gannett shuts six N.Y. weeklies; apply for Report for America by Sept. 30

The House Ways and Means Committee has added a tax credit for employing local journalists, a key part of the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, to President Biden's $3.5 billion spending plan. Under the "Payroll Credit for Compensation of News Journalists," news employers would get a five-year tax credit of up to $25,000 per journalist in the first year and up to $15,000 in the subsequent four years. The committee is expected to vote on the full bill this week. Read more here.

Newsrooms can still apply to host a Report for America journalist through Sept. 30. The initiative is especially seeking rural newsrooms as part of an effort to thwart news deserts. Read more here.

Community journalists need more mental-health resources because "every story, every loss and every trauma literally hits close to home," as a reporter for a California weekly writes for The Poynter Institute. Read more here.

Gannett Co. has announced that it will stop publishing several weekly newspapers that are satellites of its Daily Messenger in Canandaigua, an exurb of Rochester, N.Y., on Oct. 24. The papers are the Ontario Post, the Wayne Post, the Monroe Post (South, West and North editions) and the Wayne County Pennysaver. "The decision comes in the wake of the November 2019 merger of two newspaper companies — GateHouse Media and Gannett. GateHouse acquired Gannett; the merged company chose to retain Gannett as its name," reports the Daily Messenger, which was a GateHouse paper. Gannett owned the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. "The merger resulted in overlap of coverage areas, said Michael Kilian, New York state editor for Gannett and executive editor of the D&C."

Newsrooms across the globe will celebrate World News Day on Sept. 28. A plethora of resources are available for participating newsrooms. Read more here.