Posted on 04/26/2009 7:43:10 AM PDT by pissant
The nation’s largest left-wing newspaper and the bible for network news producers and bookers may be going under. This past week, The New York Times [NYT] announced more staggering losses: nearly $75 million in the first quarter alone. The New York Post is reporting that the Times Company owes more than $1 billion and has just $34 million in the bank. A few months ago, the company borrowed $250 million from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim at a reported 14 percent interest rate. With things going south fast (pardon the pun), Slim might want to put in a call to Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
The spin from Sulzberger is that the Internet is strangling the newspaper industry, and there is some truth to that. Why read an ideologically crazed paper when you can acquire a variety of information on your computer? But other papers are not suffering nearly as much as the Times, so there must be more to it.
There is no question that the Times has journalistic talent. This week the paper won five Pulitzers. It’s true that the Pulitzer people favor left-wing operations (the past eight Pulitzer Prizes for commentary have gone to liberal writers), but New York Times journalists often do good reporting.
The problem is that under Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller, the Times has gone crazy left, attacking those with whom the paper disagrees and demonstrating a hatred for conservatives (particularly President Bush) that is almost pathological. The Times features liberal columnists in every section of the paper, and they hit low, often using personal invective to smear perceived opponents.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
“insulting half the country on a daily basis may not be a great business plan.”
A few years ago, you coined the phrase, “Dixie Chick Marketing Strategy ie “Pi$$ing of half the potential subscribers/buyers and advertisers is not a very smart business plan!”
uh... "Slim" might not like that. He's not the type to take money from and think everything is going to "be alright". "Pinch" might want some protection cause wealthy people in Mexico die all the time.
An almost meaningless prize these days. A large number of prizes for journalism go to the journalist who caused the largest breach in US national security each year. And stories about any victim group recognized by the left are always strong contenders, whether or not they are true.
“There are incredibly devoted (or addicted) liberal readers of the NYT. Reading the Sunday Times is what they do while others are in church.”
BOL, we know a guy who could be the poster boy for this statement.
Years ago, one of his church going daughters said her dads’s church was the TV Screaming heads on Sunday Morning and reading the NY Times on Sunday.
I emailed her a copy of your wise insight.
I think it would be great to see Soros waste dollar after dollar.
I guess we’ll agree to disagree. For the greater part of the last 30 years, people really had no reference point for how biased and dishonest the Slimes and the MSM in general, really are.
If you really want to get into specifics, people like Bernard Goldberg and Fox News exposed them for the left wing mouthpiece they really are.
Just like NBC, the Times picked a side and they’re paying a price for it. You won’t convince me their demise is anything other than a result of people just saying “No thanks, I’ll pass on the garbage you produce.”
Let’s face it, if the Times tomorrow started exposing the crooked Democrats running this country, like they’re supposed to do, you’d probably pay attention. As would I. I don’t visit their website, I don’t buy their paper and I don’t believe a word that’s written in it. I don’t believe I’m the only one that feels that way.
I agree with everything you say about the NYT. I believe, however, that they provide exactly what their audience wants.
I don’t want it, and you don’t, but a considerable majority of the population of NYC and surrounding areas do want it.
This content allows them to continue to feel oh so superior to the rest of us.
Even if Soros never made another dollar in his life he could affoard to keep the New York Times running for decades before he ran out of money. For someone like him, being the savior of the mouthpiece of U.S. liberalism would be a pleasure no matter how much it cost him.
True.
I don't see the left wing ever allowing that to happen.
The New York Times is more than a local newspaper. It is in newsracks around the country. But it is in those locales where they are sitting unread. Average people who considered themselves cosmopolitan used to pick them up. Since it’s proudly declared itself to be a gay newspapers, regular guys don’t dare pick them up.
He is 79 years old. I wonder if his heirs will be as dedicated to “liberalism”.
Uncle Sam ( and the taxpayers) will bail him out.
The NYT used to use 75000 trees just to publish the sunday edition. Saving a lot of trees.
It is odd that the greenies got their panties all twisted a couple weeks ago over toilet paper, while ignoring the far greater use of trees for newspapers.
A newspaper subscription for a week would probably be 20 or 30 times the consumption of TP.
How right you are!
We the producers, will be forced to pay via our tax dollars to help keep these screeds operating, even if no one buys their rag. And just like the forced bail out of the the American Auto workers union pensions and Health plans, we'll be forced to keep something going that feeds the Democrat voting base.
Think about it: the left points to these propagandists in the media, in order to validate what they do. They can't continue to exist without them, so they can't let them die. Soros may throw some tax decuctable "contributions" their way to keep them in business for a while, but he doesn't want to own them, because it would be like throwing money into a black hole. He didn't forever contribute to "Air America" did he?
But still, this should be good news for us conservatives, because it is proving, that people who are able to think, know that the news and views espoused by the left are nothing more that conjured up B.S., and people with money who want the truth, are not paying for this mindless crap anymore.
In short; what is being proved here, is that, unless funded by an idiot, or taxpayers against their will, liberalism is not marketable!
“Obama’s bailout of the NYT editorial section (the entire paper) will be based on the fact that 95% of American .....”
It is well established that government support of religion through taxes violates the First Amendment.
Freedom of religion and speech are listed in the First Amendment.
Wouldn’t that mean that government support (bailout) of newspapers also violates the First Amendment?
....not that the Constitution matters to the government...
Well if ideological imbalance is not a factor for their demise, then please explain to me how it is that NBC,MSNBC, NEWSEEK,ABC, CBS and the dozens of other media sources have lost so much in reader/viewer's, while what some are calling "conservative media", like FOX NEWS, Washington TIMES, FORBES MAG, and others are doing quite the opposite?
In fact the viewership/ and subscriber base for these so labeled "conservative outlets" are undeniably outpacing the others as much as 4 times, and their profit margin is growing along with it?
And as for the tired excuse of the internet news being the culprit; that doesn't wash, cause they all have internet sites, and their site traffic is as much visited as their shows and hard copy are being viewed.
So, do tell why it is that the liberal media is about to go under? Inquiring minds want to know!
NPR and PBS have been government funded propaganda organs for the last 40 years. The courts won’t blink twice about a government funded NYT, just as long as their is some line in the funding somewhere that states they aren’t to take direct assignment from their gubment masters.
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