LAMB: Democracy and the newspapers (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

The Washington Times ^ | July 4, 2008 | Chris Lamb

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The Davidson family owned the Daytona Beach News-Journal in Florida when I worked there in the early 1990s. The newspaper's masthead included the name of the editor of the family's defunct afternoon newspaper, the Evening News. The man would come to work every day, go to his office and close the door behind him. Like everyone else on staff, he presumably was paid a salary; and, as editor of a newspaper regardless of whether it existed or not, he was probably paid more than the reporters and lower-level editors. Every now and then he would drift into the newsroom. If he got close enough, I could see the look of utter futility on his face. He was a lost soul in search of his place in a world that had moved on without him.

I thought about that editor this week, when I heard that the News-Journal had laid off 99 employees. His face, it appears, has become the face of American newspapers. The American newspaper industry, too, is in search of its place in a world that has moved on without it.

Every day, as circulations fall and advertising revenues plummet, jobs are cut and the newspaper industry becomes less essential to our lives. Newspapers failed to adapt to emerging technologies, to competing media and to the changing interests of Americans. The failure of American newspapers also is the result of its own complacency, greed, folly, waste and hubris.

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[Hardastarboard]

The failure of American newspapers also is the result of its own complacency, greed, folly, waste and hubris. biased, liberal agenda-based reporting.

[ken21]

until abc, cbs, cnn, nbc, npr

and most newspapers are gone,

we’re still at a distinct advantage.

even yahoo’s portal “news” is liberal. they spin against mccain and for obama.

[ricks_place]

Between the slant bordering on lies most newspapers place on news and the fringe opinions masquerading as thoughtful logic, newspapers do not inform citizen but rather attempt to indoctrinate them.

The state of the American democracy has always been - and perhaps always will be - inextricably connected with the state of American newspapers. "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government," Thomas Jefferson said, "I should not hesitate to prefer the latter." Democracies depend on their citizens to be involved. This depends on citizens being informed. For that, we depend on newspapers. Even relatively bad newspapers give us far more of the information we need to participate in a democracy than other news media. Television news or talk programs, talk radio, blogs, or any other news media are, at best, supplemental vitamins.

[bray]

The goal of PravdABDNCBS is to destroy this Country even if it means destroying themselves. The damage they have caused is immeasurable.

Pray for W and Our Troops

[bert]

......Democracies depend on their citizens to be involved. This depends on citizens being informed. For that, we depend on newspapers......

And from JimRob’s headliner.....

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”

To many the statements no longer go together as being American. The newspapers, especially the Associated Press, no longer serve the public and the democracy. A primary reason they are dieing is because they no longer serve the public. They now serve only the propagandist agenda.

Revolution is order and justified.It is the American way.

[Eddie01]

The failure of American newspapers also is the result of its own complacency, greed, folly, waste and hubris.

BS!

It is the result of public contempt stemming from knowledge they had been lied to, who now stand agape at the continuation of those lies and the assult heaped upon the truth tellers.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

This depends on citizens being informed. For that, we depend on newspapers. Even relatively bad newspapers give us far more of the information we need to participate in a democracy than other news media. Television news or talk programs, talk radio, blogs, or any other news media are, at best, supplemental vitamins.

Television or radio news are not even "supplemental vitamins." But then, compared to founding era newspapers or to talk radio and blogs, the modern (Post Associated Press) newspaper is merely a "supplemental vitamin" itself.

Online newspapers will replace print newspapers just as talkies replaced silent movies early last century. As newspapers transform themselves, they must find a way to be profitable, but they also must convince readers that it is in the best interests of readers to support newspapers. This requires that newspapers act not like any other business, but that they act as guardians of the public trust.

The problem is that Associated Press newspapers are fronts for the AP news monopoly, not truly independent actors in their own right. The newspapers have been coopted by the post-AP news model. The newspaper business is nominally to tell the public "what is going on" - but the actual business model is to promote and sell the perishable AP news. And continuously hyping the newest story at the expense of any real sense of perspective turns out to be a distraction from the serious business of discussing what is actually going on.

AP newspapers have always preened themselves as "act[ing] as guardians of the public trust" - even as they have distracted the public from the public interest.

The Right to Know

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping/link; post. The Right to Know BUMP!

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[T Lady]

Those are my sentiments.

...As long as the Fourth Estate continues to shill for Socialist Liberal politicians and their doltish crusades, why the heck should I subsidize them with my hard earned dollars?!