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Cutting off your news to spite your face
San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 2/26/9 | Debra J. Saunders

Posted on 02/26/2009 7:58:18 AM PST by SmithL

A couple of years ago, when speaking to a local group, I mentioned that The Chronicle was losing money. A couple in the back of the room rudely applauded. How thrilled those two must have felt when - if - they learned of Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega's announcement Tuesday that the Hearst Corp. will implement "significant" workforce cuts. If the cuts don't pay off, then the Hearst Corp. will "offer the newspaper for sale or close it altogether."

Bloggers and e-mailers are crowing. If The Chronicle is shuttered, they'll be dancing a jig.

Many conservatives feel a warm glow at the possible demise of an institution that they believe to be failing because of liberal bias. On the far left, that same glow will satisfy those who think newspapers are not liberal enough.

As for those who only read their news online, here's a news flash: News stories do not sprout up like Jack's bean stalk on the Internet. To produce news, you need professionals who understand the standards needed to research, report and write on what happened. If newspapers die, reliable information dries up.

Reduced ad revenue and falling newspaper circulation mean that there will be fewer people to cover the same number of stories. In the middle of an economic crisis and President Obama's federal spending bonanza, there will be fewer watchdogs to guard the shop.

So to those of you who argue that the demise of liberal newspapers (The Chronicle in particular) is deserved, I offer a caveat: Be careful what you wish for.

Remember the ugly consequences of San Francisco's sanctuary city policy for juvenile offenders, who were sent abroad instead of to jail? Or Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums' failure to tackle crime in Oaktown? Or reports on corporate bonuses for execs at bailed-out banks? Imagine....

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: agitprop; americanpravda; bigmedia; denialaintariver; dinosaurmedia; dnctalkingpoints; drivebymedia; enemedia; goebbelswouldproud; howtostealanelection; legacymedia; liberalmedia; mediabias; msm; obamedia; pravdamedia; stalinisttactics; stuckonstupid; waronerror; yellowjournalism; zogbyism
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To: SmithL

Specifically speaking of the SF Chronicle, I’ve spoken (complained) on the phone to more than one reporter about obvious bias and half-truths in their articles.

The response every time: the editor didn’t want “the other side of the story” in the article.

Down the tubes with ‘em all. Sorry Debra.


21 posted on 02/26/2009 8:07:10 AM PST by jiggyboy (Ten per cent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)
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To: Timesink; martin_fierro; reformed_democrat; Loyalist; =Intervention=; PianoMan; GOPJ; ...

If you don’t read the news, you are said to be uninformed.

If you only read/watch the MSM, you are woefully misinformed.

Might as well subscribe to the Daily Worker and to the LaRouchians’ newspapers too if subjecting yourself to inaccurate agitprop is considered a necessary daily task.

The media has lied too many times. Fauxtography, DNC talking points memos, collusion with the DNC on news items, fake “witnesses” to atrocities and financial losses, fake national guard documents.

Screw them and the horse they rode in on.


22 posted on 02/26/2009 8:07:12 AM PST by a fool in paradise ("Do you know the website number?" - VP Joe Biden)
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To: SmithL
To produce news, you need professionals who understand the standards needed to research, report and write on what happened. If newspapers die, reliable information dries up.

The absurd hubris of that statement is astonishing. The self-so-called objective, professional journalists are an incredibly ignorant lot, who don't even know how ignorant they are ... If the currently unreliable newspapers die, then maybe some folks will start finding ways to publish reliable information.

23 posted on 02/26/2009 8:07:28 AM PST by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: SmithL

She’s a conservative?

Also, while I see her point as regards ALL liberal media disppearing (which would be bad), if the San Francisco Chronicle completely disappeared TOMORROW, I do not think the country or the world would suffer AT ALL.


24 posted on 02/26/2009 8:07:43 AM PST by WayneS (Respect the 2nd Amendment; Repeal the 16th)
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To: SmithL
If newspapers die, reliable information dries up.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Ha.

25 posted on 02/26/2009 8:07:53 AM PST by TankerKC (It's July, 1956.)
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To: KarlInOhio
"I have to pay for a "watchdog"

Your Congress critter is your watchdog on gov't spending. Too bad the ones we hire are easily seduced with pieces of pork.

26 posted on 02/26/2009 8:08:06 AM PST by Paladin2 (No, pundits strongly believe that the proper solution is more dilution.)
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To: abb
The Drive-Bys don’t even know it’s going on.

Those that do are looking to bury it deep so it looks like a couple of crackpots.

Neal Boortz was talking about a FairTax rally he was at with thousands of people. On a nearby corner there were a dozen people protesting the war in Iraq. The war protesters made the news while thousands rallying against the current tax code might as well have not happened at all in the MSM's view.

27 posted on 02/26/2009 8:08:17 AM PST by KarlInOhio (On 9/11 Israel mourned with us while the Palestinians danced in the streets. Who should we support?)
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To: SmithL
How thrilled those two must have felt when - if - they learned of Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega's announcement Tuesday that the Hearst Corp. will implement "significant" workforce cuts.

Correctamundo!

Newspapers that serve as the propaganda wing of the liberal agenda-socialists deserve to die. The quicker, the better.

28 posted on 02/26/2009 8:08:21 AM PST by San Jacinto (gorebull warming -- the Socialists' Shortcut.)
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To: fifthestate

Yup.

Just like anyone with a ..... can be a whore.


29 posted on 02/26/2009 8:08:28 AM PST by WayneS (Respect the 2nd Amendment; Repeal the 16th)
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To: SmithL
On the far left, that same glow will satisfy those who think newspapers are not liberal enough.

Blah, blah, blah. I got tired of hearing this baloney long time ago. "Some on the right say we are liberal but we've found some on the left who say we are conservative, so we must be in the middle doing the news neutrally like we are suppose to do." Bullcrap.
If newspapers die, reliable information dries up.

If newspapers die, one of the biggest proponents of liberalism and hate dies. The sooner the better.

30 posted on 02/26/2009 8:08:32 AM PST by techcor (I hope Obama succeeds... in becoming a one term president.)
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To: SmithL

The problem is how to “monetize” information when it so freely available on the Internet. In the end, what is a news company’s product? I assert it’s “trust”.

There is a lot of information out there, yes, but can you trust it? And I suspect a lot of the media’s problem is that can people really trust the news they are getting. If all information is equally suspect, it indeed becomes nothing more than a commodity. And frankly the media has eroded their core product, trust.


31 posted on 02/26/2009 8:08:58 AM PST by dfwgator (1996 2006 2008 - Good Things Come in Threes)
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To: sam_paine

If newspapers die, reliable information dries up.


I wonder how reliable information is defined by a professional?


32 posted on 02/26/2009 8:09:20 AM PST by PeterPrinciple ( Seeking the truth here folks.)
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To: KarlInOhio

Oops. That double post was my fault.


33 posted on 02/26/2009 8:09:23 AM PST by KarlInOhio (On 9/11 Israel mourned with us while the Palestinians danced in the streets. Who should we support?)
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To: SmithL

Debra Saunders was bought and paid for by the Chronicle. She did what they expected her to do, which was to provide a figleaf of credibility to their abysmal yellow-journalistic Commie rag.

Now the Chronicle can die and we’ll see if Debra Saunders gets picked up as a token conservative by some other bottom feeding liberal media outlet.


34 posted on 02/26/2009 8:09:36 AM PST by mkjessup (You're either with our Constitution, or you are with TKU ("The Kenyan Usurper"). CHOOSE!!!)
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To: ex91B10

Well, her statement IS correct.

The JOKE would be trying to find someone who fits that bill at the Chronicle.


35 posted on 02/26/2009 8:09:55 AM PST by WayneS (Respect the 2nd Amendment; Repeal the 16th)
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To: SmithL

“To produce news, you need professionals who understand the standards needed to research, report and write on what happened. If newspapers die, reliable information dries up.”

LOL...that is the funniest quote of the day. Debra, we are sorry you may have to go out into the world and try to find a real job, instead of being the kept “conservative” on that Leftist rag. Blame the university that took your money to educate you for an obsolete job. Society has survived without lamp-lighters, and it will survive without newspaper columnists.


36 posted on 02/26/2009 8:10:32 AM PST by kittymyrib
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To: SmithL

“To produce news, you need professionals who understand the standards needed to research, report and write on what happened.”

Your problem is precisely that you DON’T understand the standards. The news coming to us from newspapers across the country these days is not only biased, it is, quite simply, very poorly written. It’s as if no one’s heard of who, what, when, where, why, and how. Reporters drone on and on with their personal opinions, their “insights” and endless verbiage intended to inform the reader NOT what happened, but what he should THINK about what happened. This sort of pseudo-intellectual self-regard is both supercilious and vastly irritating.

“If newspapers die, reliable information dries up.”

Pure, unadulterated bullsh*t. There will always be newshounds, whatever their medium.


37 posted on 02/26/2009 8:10:52 AM PST by Jack Hammer (here)
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To: SmithL

Something will fill the vacuum. And it HAS to be better.

I want everybody associated with the Chronicle and every other liberal, socialist, Democrat newsroom to lose their jobs, their homes, and their families. For what they have done to this country they deserve nothing less. (spit)


38 posted on 02/26/2009 8:11:26 AM PST by Lancey Howard
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To: KarlInOhio
I would pay for a watchdog.

Who is going to watch the watchdogs. They had plenty of "watchdogs" at the SEC, but that organization was rotten to the core, and nobody was paying attention.

39 posted on 02/26/2009 8:11:33 AM PST by dfwgator (1996 2006 2008 - Good Things Come in Threes)
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To: SmithL
In the middle of an economic crisis and President Obama's federal spending bonanza, there will be fewer watchdogs to guard the shop.

Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha...

40 posted on 02/26/2009 8:11:36 AM PST by throwback
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