Posted on 07/12/2008 9:40:07 PM PDT by tobyhill
The newspaper industry is in a bad spot. Actually, run a correction on that statement — newspapers are in a "time to panic" spot. The business model is collapsing, ad dollars are disappearing, newsprint prices are at a 12-year high and the Internet is just giving news away for free. On July 2, the Los Angeles Times announced it was cutting more than one-sixth of its newsroom staff; the Tampa Tribune said it would cut 20%.
Some weeks ago, Randy Michaels, COO of the Tribune newspaper group — the second largest in the nation — mused in a conference call with investors that while the company's salespeople were judged by their performance, "nobody has ever said, 'How many column inches does a journalist write?'" The problem is, productivity quotas are anathema to one of journalism's core duties, investigative reporting — an expensive enterprise that can consume months of a writer's time and often yield few results.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Seems to me that most stuff they report they make up alomg the way
Here’s an idea - outsource investigative reporting, at least the investigation part, to REAL detectives (aka private investigators) and just have some copy editor write up the report afterwards. It’d be cheaper and simpler. Oh, and it’d be more likely to be factual than, say, the CBS “investigative journalism” that gave us the GM sidesaddle gas tank explosive urban legend.
To the Associated Press: If you’re reading this, using any part of this idea beyond “here’s an idea - outsource” will cost you $50,000 per article you use it for.
I’m sure glad I got out of the newspaper biz....
Todays great journalistic piece was that some guy in the Pentagon said that the US “may” speed up withdrawal from Iraq. I think people are on to this “maybe, possible, he without name, she without name” journalism.
But at least they are becoming “Carbon Neutral.” That’s gotta make them “feel” good about the situation.
What’s so funny was that the night hat LGF produced the “Iran Missile Photoshop” story, the LATIMES printed the picture on their frontpage the next day.
They are truly dinosaurs whose time has come. They’re so big that a simple fact check escapes them (except making up anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War liberal stories).
Instead of the news media being an unofficial adjunct of the Democrat party they could, oh I don't know, maybe keep their warped political bias out of the news and let their readers and viewers decide what's important.
The MSM is as dumb as some unions when it comes to the Rat Party. They will all follow the Rats over the cliff.
Liberal derangement is so strong that these papers would prefer to go bankrupt rather than to report objectively, which would possibly renew some interest in their dying fishwraps. They can’t go belly-up fast enough for me.
“CBS “investigative journalism” that gave us the GM sidesaddle gas tank explosive urban legend.”
Was that CBS or NBC?
CBS just presents forged documents.
It *was* NBC, I type corrected.
It’s so easy to get all the lying journalist orgs confused.
Me too. At 14 I figured out there was no future in delivering newspapers at 4:00 AM for sub-minimum wage and then trying to get back to sleep before getting up for school.
Most liberals either do not or can not read.
If they did or could read they probably would buy such news worthy magazines as People, Rolling Stoned, National Inquirer, Star or the Sun.
Hard news print with positive articles about Americas traditions or its military just does not flip the switch of your average Going Green liberal newspaper executive.
You see the airhead smug hip and hop crowd believes conservative news is something the establishment majority might use to make right wing decisions while liberals base their news on fake but accurate whatever feels good today propaganda.
Liberal Newspapers and Conservative Customers is an Oxymoron by a power to the Nth degree.
Commonsense should tell all in the newsprint business that if 85% of their customers believe in Americas values as the greatest country then stories constantly degrading them and Americas traditions would cause anyone to turn away in droves to news sources they want to hear and read.
Murdoch stumbled on to that fact back in the 90’s with Fox news but smug newsprint and media executives ignored the proverbial writing on on the wall.
Folks like the prickly idiots over at PMSNBC, CBS, ABC New York Times, L.A. Times and others will one day be only a quick mention in history books followed by and asterisk * (done in by Liberalism and media executives stupidity).
The truth is America needs a strong UNBIASED news media but over the past fifty years that concept has completely gone over the heads of the radical left wing universities that produce most of the reporters for this failing industry.
News paper editors are like Ruby in that old song by Kenny Rogers “Ruby Don't Take Your Love To Town” when they allow fabricated and constant negative left wing news to be printed, a person just wants to get their gun like Kenny says and shoot ole Ruby down.
I am about to add to their misery in my own small way. I received a solicitation for a subscription from the NYT this week complete with postage paid return envelope.
I have written them a letter explaining why I would never purchase their left wing traitorous tripe and will send it to them using their prepaid postage, taped to a house brick.
I’m just wondering about copying the envelope and repeating the exercise multiple times, or maybe that would be fraudulent.
If they spent time reporting the news, rather than spending time creating or becoming the news, they wouldn’t find themselves in this fiasco they find themselves in.
Whenever I get a Business Reply envelope from a left-wing organization I always mail it back with an appropriate comment inside..not only does it cost them money but it helps out my employer, the US Postal Service.
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