Posted on 11/20/2005 2:53:55 PM PST by abb
It's the same. Gannett is just a little more intense with their advertising sales...
Come on Rupert. Buy these papers and turn them around like you did with the NY Post.
Nobody-reads-the-Inquirer ping
When I was a youngster ('70's), I was a paperboy, and I eagerly read the comics in the Morning Record and New Haven Register (afternoon). Sometimes I would even buy the best SUnday comics in the universe, the Sunday Boston Herald. As I got older, I started reading the editorials, sports, and news sections.
Now, I have my own children, and the comics section is not fit reading. Even family strips like "For Better or Worse" explore topics (shacking up and homosexuality) that I will not be exposing my children to, and certainly without their slant. The regular news section and especially the "lifestyle" type sections are not fit to have around children, either. I haven't subscribed to a newspaper in ten years (after having TWO separate subscriptions). The odds of any of my children subscribing to the local newspapers when full-grown is next to nil. I am sure I am not alone.
Yes, I know. Our "local" paper is owned by the NYT and runs the NYT articles on the front page.
Today's top-of-the-fold headline reads, Session Exposes GOP's Risks and goes on and on for many column-inches about what a disaster the Friday Night House vote was for the GOP and Bush and how the Dims are surging back. There is no real news, but plenty of DNC talking points are printed.
Worthless rag. I quit my subscription months ago but they still keep bugging me. Why pay for DNC talking points, columns by Paul Krugman, and endless Letters to the Editor on "Bush Lied" and "Dirty Administration Caught in Scandal" letters?
*PPHHTTOUEYY!*
I dropped subscription to the local rag way back in the day of the Queer March on Washington when I got on my doorstep an entire thicker-than-normal edition devoted from page 1 to page last to the wonderfulness of being homosexual. This is a self proclaimed "Libertarian" newspaper that publishes almost all stock left opinion plus Walter Williams.
The stockholders at these creaky old papers need to raise hell. Newspapers are a tough enough sell in these days of illiteracy without the editorial staff making it even harder by embracing a worn-out, discredited ideology. Publishers need to hold their senior editors to account, and those editors need to reinstate the time-tested values of objectivity, detachment, and "news you can use" instead of "news that uses you."
No doubt some of the shareholders are doing just that. They're selling, as evidenced by the decline of the stock price.
And just think of the damage being done to the employee's 401k accounts.
I really feel sorry for them. Really, I do...
Nobody is willing to talk about the 2-ton elephant standing in the middle of the room: newspapers are failing because people don't want to read them. People don't want to read them because they are hostile to mainstream values. There is no perceived value in a news vehicle that lies or distorts the truth, and little moral validity in enriching someone who despises you.
Heck bert, who wants 'em? I'll throw in a shovel full of dirt after words are said over 'em. Like I've said before, this revoltin' development is breakin' my heart. Really.
Whistle while you work.... ;^)
FGS
I tell you what...you make this deal, and I'll gladly sign on as a writer with one of the papers in question. As a freelance writer I'd never be interested in waging the daily uphill battle of working for a lefty fishwrap, but helping to establish the new editorial party line...that I could handle.
Minus the comics and the crosswords, most papers would fail within 6 mo. They vastly overrate themselves in the propaganda dept. actually.
I am calling my guy at Merrill Lynch Capital tomorrow
and try to get a target price on this chain. If it was converted to conservative it could survive, minus some trimming.
Yes if they are left wing rags, but how many conservative papers have failed?
I weep for you the walrus said, I deeply sympathize.......................................
I do need some newsprint to light the charcoal in my little chimney lighter...
When I want to read fiction I buy a novel. Not a newspaper.
If there's no other bids on the table, we can low ball...
Stopped service to both local papers last yr and don't miss it a bit. I can even get the death notices on the internet for my area (that;s all I looked at anyhow,lol)
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