In a letter to the FTC, Google challenged the findings of a study on journalism.

On its public policy blog last night, Google laid out arguments against the Staff Discussion Draft of Potential Policy Recommendations To Support The Reinvention Of Journalism which studied how journalism, particularly in the newspaper profession, had been affected by the move to electronic readership over the past decade, and into the future.

The basis of the government's argument:

• Studies have shown that newspapers typically provide the largest quantity of original news to consumers over any given period of time.
• 80% of traditional newspaper revenue comes from advertising and 20% from subscription
• Newspapers' revenues from advertising have fallen approximately 45% since 2000. Classified advertising accounted for $19.6 billion in revenue for newspapers in 2000, $10.2 billion in 2008, and is estimated to be only $6.0 billion in 2009.

So the question is, how do you fill that revenue void?  There are a laundry list of proposals including taxes on broadband, grants to universities and subsidies for mail delivery.  One particular part got Google's goat, however.

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