On the surface, it would appear to be a distinction between “news” and “narrative” where the news is considered to have more weight due to its timeliness and its relevance to longevity. IOWs, what is printed in the newspapers is of immediate or near short-term importance while stories in magazines, periodicals, and books have a longer life/sales cycle.

so whereas you would expect sales to persist for a book over a long time with popularity of the subject, a printed newspaper edition is not going to sell past the next edition which can be as frequent as the next day or the next week.

I am not defending the lack of seeming tax fairness here, just highlighting a possible reason for the distinction as a newspaper is far more likely to publish information that the public needs to know right now and taxing the publication might reduce the number of copies available to said public. This in turn might have the effect of leaving some uninformed; especially those in lower income brackets.

Now in the age of the Internet and the plethora of alternative sources for the type of information traditionally served by newspapers, there is room for argument here that perhaps the distinction need no longer apply.

It will be interesting to see where this goes however and what the consequences would be for allowing taxation of newspapers going forward. One question remains here though: If the tax reduces the number of physical copies of the paper available to the public, does this mean that the State could go after pay wall revenues in the same way – or do they already do this?