Posted on 08/10/2013 6:39:57 PM PDT by upbeat5
The newspaper business stinks Take a look at the product People don't read, they skim, Readers trust peers, not institutions
Does anyone really "read" a newspaper anymore? Did they ever?
(snip)
According to Gallup, 55 percent of Americans get their news from TV, 21 percent from the Internet, and 6 percent from radio. Print? 9 percent.
But no one is really talking about the product.
Once you take the movie times (Fandango) and the classified ads (Craigslist) out of the paper, you're pretty much left with news stories. (OK, and the comics.)
(snip)
And those news stories haven't changed much.
But reading habits have.
"There is a lot of evidence in a variety of fields, including highly technical and sophisticated fields such as science and medicine, that there is more 'horizontal' reading [skimming] today because the volume of material has grown so dramatically," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project, in an email.
(snip)
Of course, the news has to be informative and accurate—at least in the eye of the beholder. Apparently newspapers have an issue there, too. According to Gallup, only one in four Americans actually has any confidence in newspapers.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
bump
I promise to drop everything and read the entire article of the IRS scandal the day the NY Times or the Washington Post gets around to investigating it.
Don't worry--no one will read them, anyway.
Newspapers used to go into the trash; now they begin as trash.
“Does anyone really “read” a newspaper anymore? Did they ever?”
Millions of people read Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken. Readers did so because they wrote interesting stories in newspapers. Liberal shitheads don’t get that. Plus, liberal hacks couldn’t write interesting stories if their lives depended on it.
Yes, but the best part about lib newspapers is they always line my plastic garbage bags to absorb the liquid crap, hence keeping the bottom dry.
See? Lib publications have their uses.
Somehow or another, my cable TV subscription gets me a “free” home delivery of my local newspaper.
Every couple of days I pick them up out of my driveway and throw them in the trash.
My job requires that I travel out of town about one week per month.
The motels usually offer a “free” USA Today newspaper.
I get them just to do the crossword puzzle at breakfast.
These are my only involvements with printed newspapers.
TV is only good for getting "Sum Ting Wong" by the newsreader.
You should probably try to cancel the paper, I wonder if they would let you?
I was in Ajijic, Mexico (late ‘90’s) when Drudge forced the Lewinsky story to come out. I can still remember getting USA Today and reading all the related articles for at least one hour. When all you can get is USA Today, you settle for whatever news you can get. (Ajijic is where Lake Chapala is.)
More than 40 years ago newspapers announced that they would start censoring news, for instance the race of criminals.
At the same time they announced plans to drop some of what was considered news and of interest to it’s customers, by using affirmative action and quotas in hiring reporters, for the reason that these hires were to find stories and news not currently seen as of interest to it’s readers, and write on them from the perspective of activist feminists and race conscious activists.
Newspapers became less and less useful, or interesting, or relevant, and as the years progressed it got worse and then more worse, today we read newspapers like the Soviets did, reading an article 2 or 3 times looking for clues and hints as to what really happened.
For me it became too exhausting and with such little return, that I gave up on them, they had reached the point where they can actually make you dumber on the news and events.
I think many people skim newspaper articles because they know that a lot of the details are going to be wrong. Why read something carefully when you know from experience that a lot of it is incorrect?
I don’t know if journalism was better in the old days, but now it is being revealed as mostly biased and/or slipshod.
You could read endorsements of John "I served in Vietnam" Kerry for 21 days straight...
Once you take the movie times (Fandango) and the classified ads (Craigslist) out of the paper, you're pretty much left with news stories. (OK, and the comics.)
They might not have been as biased or shoddy in the old days but readers had fewer sources of info and they certainly had nothing like the internet.
The newspapers have, for decades, been crapping in their bed by loading down their “news” with such liberal garbage that nobody takes them seriously any more.
And now they’re upset that nobody takes them seriously.
I can’t seem to muster any sympathy...
To NYT, Washington Post, Minneapolis Star and Tribune: The main problem is all who can tolerate your product necessarily are illiterate i.e. can't read. This is a crisis if you are trying to sell newspapers.
I used to read the newspaper all the time. So did millions of people. If I had the skills I’d find you an old photo of people on the NYC subway, I bet 7 out of 10 were reading a paper. They are still reading, but it’s ipads, kindles, phones.
When I was a little kid (ok, that’s 45 years ago I grant it), our big weekly treat was going with our dad about 3 long blocks away late on Saturday night and buying the sunday papers. Then coming home and watching Chiller Theatre on TV. Good times!
But even when I got older and was a hipster 20 year old we’d go out and buy the Sunday Times without fail every week, and read it. OK, we didn’t even read the news part, but we read the rest of it.
So yeah, people used to read the paper. The last time I read the NY Times my intelligence was so insulted I still haven’t gotten over it. And they are too darn expensive. I might buy the Star Ledger on Sunday for the movie reviews, crossword puzzle, etc. But it’s like 3 bucks, so forget it!
We use our toilet.
I scan it enough to know if I’m going to be manipulated or filled full of c-rap.
Then again, most of the newspapers have already proven that they are just that, so I don’t give them my business anyway. The Truth is online - and in the UK newspapers.
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