Posted on 12/07/2013 7:50:52 PM PST by BruceDeitrickPrice
Newspapers are losing circulation and advertising revenue. Many old-time publications are going out of business.
There’s no question that selling newspapers has gotten more difficult because of the Internet. Fifty years ago people settled down for an hour every day with their newspapers. That pattern is disappearing.
Equally, there is no question that newspapers have made their situation worse. They insist on being politically correct, liberal, progressive, or whatever you want to say. What they don’t insist on doing is telling the facts and letting readers think for themselves. Perish that thought
The problem across America is that the so-called mainstream media is not mainstream at all. It’s liberal media, and they produce a predictable, flat, boring product consisting of roughly 85% politically correct views mixed with a scattering of 15% non-politically correct views. And that’s on an adventurous day.
There used to be people called reporters who would knock down doors to get a story. We don’t have those people anymore. Now we have political operatives called journalists. They are trained to package and manipulate the news, not to report the news.
On a day (Oct. 9, 2013) when Obama’s approval rating dropped to 37% (which is the real story), liberal media were screaming that the public’s approval of Congress had dropped to 20%. But that second statistic is almost meaningless. A big block of people are mad at Congress for opposing Obama. But probably a similar number are mad at Congress for NOT opposing Obama. So why would any self-respecting journalist emphasize the 20% number and ignore the 37% number? Because they are journalists.
The Far-left (a.k.a. “Commies”) always try to seize control of education and media. They do a great job of seizing control. So now a degree in journalism means a degree in progressive ideology...
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
Putting a target on journalists is ok, but IMHO, the major problem killing most newspapers is the caliber of the owners and editors. Silly and biased stories can be killed if the owner and/or editors are responsible. If not, bias will fill every page, e.g., New York Slimes, Washington Compost.
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You make a good point. I always say businesses don’t fail because of the workers. They fail because of the management. It is the same with editors, who are ultimately the managers of the stories being produced.
I used to love the newspaper format in my younger days, it is the leftwing bias that turned me off of them.
They are a lot more than 85% liberal PC, maybe the DAILY OKLAHOMAN or the UNION-LEADER might get 15% non-PC on a good day
Compete or go bankrupt. How hard is that to figure out?
If a conservative daily were available where I live, I wouldn’t hesitate to subscribe.
There are no conservative dailies anywhere. The Washington Times was closest and it is now web only.
Why, exactly , would we want to save them?
The obits and the funny papers? Weddings?
Ha!
I confess to liking the puzzles. But they can be had online easily.
I tend to agree. I’ve traveled across the US and probably read around a hundred different US papers over my life. Seventy percent are slanted left....maybe twenty-five percent are mostly neutral. I’ve come across a few papers in Utah and Florida that I’d regard lightly leaning on the right.
The general problem is that the customer base that would have stood by the papers....are dying off. In today’s atmosphere, it’s going digital and in twenty years....there won’t be a single paper-format newspaper produced in the country. Even the guys who produce the raw paper for the industry know there’s stopping point somewhere in the near future and less thought put into new technology for product.
In some ways, it’s easier today to start a paper from scratch....if you were going to be an entirely digital unit. A guy could have the server in his garage, hire six local college kids, and have five full-time guys walking around the county doing on-the-spot interviews and publishing in seconds, not hours.
Ditto... crossword, sudoku, crypto quote cypher... and the classified... anr maybe the police blotter for laughs are about all I can handle in the local daily rag.
Oh! Maybe the horoscope for sh!tz-n-giggles occasionally too.
bump
Check out my cryptoquip site: www.wordles.com
Been online for many years - enjoy!
Problem as I see it—and I have worked and written for newspapers—is they do not see the paper as a business-to them its a public service. They tell the people what they ought to think. Problem is, once long ago—reporters were grown from within the paper itself—people would be copy boys, then cub reporters then go up the ladder. Now they come out of Liberal dominated colleges. They write for each other—not the man on the street. Theywn rite to impress their liberal friends they golf with—and not the guy on the corner store. Its a mind set that infects the Editors and owners—who are elitists. BUT it doesn’t have to be so—Look at the successful papers in England? How to save the Newspapers? My advise for any who whats it.
1. Get classy Reporters with style—celebrities who can dig out a story even if they get tossed in the clink. let them write expose stories people want to read. Like: Corruption at City Hall, What about brothels—how much do they charge?
2. get stuff in the paper that people can’t get on the net for free! Don’t give it away! maybe people want to subscribe.
3. Get better Cartoons! Peanuts was funny in the 1970s—not any more—Get unique stuff.
4. Local news! Its all local—boy scouts, sports, Local scandals, Whats happening with local boys in the mittary!
5. Put in stuff people want to read—even controversal stuff. Like haunted houses, UFOs, Lost Treasures Big foot, etc... Unsoved historical mysteries.
6. Here is one—Post Jobs for Free! people looking for work will buy the paper—why let this go to Craigs List?
7. Think outside of the box—a bunch of stories on important things—rececipes, Reviews, Sermons—etc... Exposes.
8. How about a page given over to the DNC—talking points==and another to the GOP and Libertarians, hey even the Communists or other Nut case groups.
Why, exactly , would we want to save them?
I normally stack them up in a pile and when the stack is about 10 inches high, bind them with jute twine and then recycle them.
</sarc>
Good litmus test is if they carry Doonesbury and if so where they place it. I like your free employement classifieds suggestion... I would screen it for local jobs only, however... like as in "free, if you bring the ad in to Sally Mae before 11am on the day before it would first run".
Been online for many years - enjoy!
The thing is, it is the structure of having the ritual of going down the street at lunchtime to the newsstand and getting the paper... going back and giving the sports section to one guy, the front section to another and then doing the sudoku in the classifieds... I can always return tothe break room on my way out for an afternoon smoke and grab the cypher and usually nail it... or not. If I can't, no big deal... tomorrow is another. I think, for me, it is about not being on a stupid computer.
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