No they are not getting the picture. That is why the subscription rates are falling for papers and network newscast audiences are falling. Advertising dollars are down as well. It is not a pretty picture.
There was a time when 90 million Americans watched the evening news on the three major networks. The ratings might show the network audience as 35, 30, and 25 million with CBS and NBC fighting over which had 35 and which had 30. ABC was always in third place. We used to say that ABC always was sucking the hind mammary gland or words to that effect.
But today the combined audience for the network newscasts is falling below 25 million total. What used to be hind... whatchamacallit .... is now the total udder. Nearly 3 out of every 4 network newscast viewers have gone the way of the remote control.
That is why we hear talk of the networks dropping evening coverage. There was a time when the evening news was wildly profitable. But with less than a third of its former audience the income in constant dollars is less than a third of what it once was.
It is now a money loser.
Newspaper circulations have been dropping since the 1970s. Fifty years ago nearly every city had two papers. Today they have one and its circulation is dropping to less than when there were two papers.
Newspapers and networks have always played the game of separation of the business of selling papers and advertising from content. Thus no big advertiser could dictate what a paper printed or a network broadcast.
But that has resulted in organizations that do not have to answer to customers ... subscribers, viewers, or advertisers.
So advertising dollars have shrunk and circulation has dropped. Of course advertising rates depend on circulation and audience size. The loss of subscribers and viewers means less money to fund the reporters and commentators.
But the isolated reporters and commentators continue their self destructive acts... They just get angry with the business people for not selling more papers and more advertising. It is always the business offices fault for not selling more.
The content people blame the business people and the business people are unable to fix the situation.
It is a prescription for self destruction and you and I have a front row seat.
It is not the media that understands the situation. It is the public that has come to understand the media bias. There is an old saying.. "Never lie to yourself!" The media types are doing just that. A significant percent of the public is no longer buying the lies.
The media likes to tell us that the new media is insignificant... that it only effects 2 or 3 percent of the voters. But most elections that decide the control of the federal government are decided by one or two percentage points. The contested elections in contested states typically go 51 to 49 or 52 to 48. If the new media moves just over one percent from the left side of the equation to the right side, the results of the close elections are changed and the media's candidate is very likely to be defeated. And the new media's influence is growing. Soon it will be 4 or 5 percent and the old media will have been totally neutered.
That is not good news for Democrats or anyone on the left.