Easy... a majority of the population can not read.
How about we get someone in Congress to propose a TAX!
A TAX on NEWSPRINT!
Whereas the production of newspapers causes trees to be cut down, hauled by polluting trucks to polluting paper mills, and hauled from paper mills to publishers and
Whereas the production of newspapers requires toxic ink and solvents and energy wasting machinery and
Whereas the distribution of newspapers requires the use of dirty internal combustion engines and
Whereas a large portion of every landfill is used for discarded newspapers,
Therefore:
Be it resolved that a Newsprint tax, of $1,000.00 per pound, be charged to EVERY newspaper with a daily subscription, within the United States!
________________________________________
We should get some Republican to propose THIS as an amendment to any cap and trade or carbon tax proposal that comes up!
Maybe we can make it like Cap and Trade and use the revenue generated, from this tax on dirty dinosaur newspapers, to subsidize a tax credit for home computers and digital devices?
Or, we could use the money to subsidize talk radio! Well, those guys really dont need any help!
i thought of this years ago:
it’s ironic that the los angeles times cannot be read by the mexican immigrants’ children.
los angeles county counts about 10,000,000 people, 2/3 of which are mexican.
if the union schools had properly educated only several hundred thousands of children to read,
the los angeles times would be having no problemas.
si.
I can read...it’s just that I don’t agree with what I’m reading in the various hometown papers. Whatever happened to “nothing but the facts” journalism? I won’t even buy the Sunday paper for the coupons any more.
Late edition, perfect size for reading on the subway and train ... otherwise an early incarnation of the NYP.
> Endowment Chairman Dana Gioia stated: “This is a massive social problem. We are losing the majority of the new generation. They will not achieve anything close to their potential because of poor reading.”
You mean, reading the LA Times and the Washington Post makes you smarter? That must be more than 80-proof Kool Aid she’s drinking.
TELL THE TRUTH.
(I fully realize that all sensible, thinking Americans — thatd be conservatives —fully understand this information. I post it only for the brain-dead Obama voters and statists — thatd be liberals — who might have slipped out of their rubber rooms over at DU and are lurking, hacking or generally causing trouble here at FR.)
Recently, I read what probably amounts to the obituary for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. (My wife insists on buying the Sunday edition for the TV guide.) It joins the growing list of print newspapers in deep, deep financial trouble. The LA Times, NY Times, Boston Globe, Cleveland Plain Dealer, etc.
Heres my horseback analysis of why theyre heading for extinction.
As generally liberal statist propaganda outlets, they have for decades supported a government education system (and I used the term very loosely) dominated by the NEA and the idiot bureaucrats running the DOE in Washington. The unions and the NEA have largely hurled the traditional three Rs and critical thinking skills under the bus in favor of touchy-feely diversity training, self-esteem building, political correctness, African studies, teaching Hispanic kids in SPANISH instead of teaching them English on day one, social promotions, basket weaving, navel gazing, etc., etc.
I wont dwell on it here but would, instead, refer you to my personal experience with the government schools here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0lR1KQq2-U
What I cannot grasp is precisely why, after effectively dumbing down the members of the American populace who have traversed the conveyor belt of mediocrity called government schools, the overeducated owners and operators of these newspapers are surprised that this population has lost its interest in READING NEWSPAPERS: Many of them CANT read!!
Those folks especially conservatives who resent the increasingly liberal drivel found in the major papers — who can and DO read things are now getting their information from the Internet or, for those too busy to actually read, from largely conservative talk radio (which helps explain why Algore, Pelosi, Reid, et al feel the need to control both these formats).
Their statist dumbing down has produced huge numbers of voters who lacked the critical thinking skills necessary to determine that their present-voting, slick-talking liar of a candidate had virtually NO management or legislative experience. And the economic illiterates they have elevated to high office in Washington for years have produced a growing economic crisis which has even those with any money left spending it on luxuries like food, clothing and shelter. Newspapers and advertising therein are far down the list.
And did I mention that the economic collapse Obama inherited has its genesis in Jimmy Carters Community Reinvestment Act? It was then expanded by Clinton and stridently defended by Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters and Barney Frank (who was sleeping with Herb Moses while he held a top spot at appropriately Fannie). Only government could turn the dream of home ownership for poor folks into a NIGHTMARE for the rest of us.
Now that they have control of the White House and both houses of Congress, the liberals who run most of the newspapers here SHOULD be on a beach somewhere throwing a huge party. Instead, they are dusting off their resumes. The Editor of the AJC informed us that she was actively seeking to get more conservative/traditional values writers in the pages down there. Id submit that its too little, too late!
Perhaps shell write and let us know if that Hope and Change We Can Believe In thing helps with the job search.
If you just have to have one of those 1,000 new jobs dunning folks for Tim Geithners IRS, it couldnt hurt.
The young of today are use to 30-second segments in their lives (TV commercials being a great example). Anything beyond that and they lose interest. To read a newspaper takes time and concentration, something our youth dont have the patients for.
And:
If you lean to the left, you already know what the newspaper is going to say.
If you lean to the right, you already know what the newspaper is going to say.
Why bother.
ping
“Why big city newspapers are dying”
Cause they suck.
For conservatives, this isn’t just any divorce from the newspapers. It’s a loathing, knockdown one. I hate them.
A thread about newspaper death...
For one the newspapers have made a decision to cater to the ubberleft. They basically have said we don’t care about conservtives buying our newspaper. Secondly, from talking and working with leftist most of them are just dingbats. They rarely read a newspaper unless its to catch up on celbrity news. The liberal elites might be reading these newspapers but thats about it. So they cater to a small group and hope to atract mainstream advertising bucks and those advertisers realize they can go elsewhere for their money.
Growing up in Memphis, I remember the morning paper, waiting on the doorstep by 7 AM, an afternoon edition, thrown by neighborhood kids, and a final edition, brought home by my father after work.
Of course, in those days, even the milk and laundry were
delivered daily, and the popsicle guy made daily rounds.
If needed, we even had home delivery of groceries.
At least I am not quite old enough to remember the ice man ;)
While we like to blame it on the pro Demowit left wing Marxist trash that they print, I doubt that anything can
save the papers.
Internet , broadcast, and cable has taken over news distribution.
I know there is a niche market for those of us that
like to browse the paper over morning coffee, but I do not
think it is enough to support the infrastructure required for a newspaper.
Better dead than red!
“like the rest of America, a victim of our general literacy decline.”
IMHO all they need to do is apply some novel concepts such as tell the truth and apply conservative fiscal business techniques.
Or, it could be craigslist.
because they print lies and trash no one believes?