Posted on 08/20/2019 3:50:24 AM PDT by Kaslin
I’ve always loved the news. When I was a kid growing up in Detroit, I found the AM dial on the radio and was hooked. In the dentist office, I’d always grab Newsweek over Highlights for Kids. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that I’d already done the hidden images in the drawing on the last page, but I really liked the political cartoons and quote page. That’s part of why what news magazines have become is so disappointing to me.
I get that they have to make money. But when Newsweek sold for a dollar a few years ago, that wasn’t the warning it should have been to do their jobs better, it was the start of these once great institutions turned from important sources of information into a mirror on the Internet.
Printed versions of TIME and Newsweek have become harder find. Grocery stores, many of which used to carry them in the checkout aisles, now don’t carry them at all. If you do manage to find a hard copy, what you find is a leaflet with almost no heft. They’re so thin, with so few pages, they can barely support their own weight. They lay in your hand like an undercooked pancake, which is an honest reflection of the words inside.
A quick look at the Twitter feed of these magazines gives you a peek into just how far they’ve fallen.
Here’s a look at recent tweets from TIME:
“From Marie Antoinette to JoJo Siwa, hair bows have always carried surprising layers of meaning.”
“We counted every line in every Quentin Tarantino film to see how often women talk.”
Newsweek’s feed is worse:
“National Fajita Day 2019: Best deals from Chili's, On The Border, El Corazon, and Fajita Pete's.”
“Ava Duvernay and Chelsea Handler join birth control conversation as #BoycottCVS trends.”
“New attacks, abilities and more revealed in latest 'Pokémon Sword and Shield' trailer.”
See anything resembling news in there? The Pulitzer Prize committee can stop looking.
Not a lot of “news” in “Oprah's Favorite Things 2018: 51 fabulous gift ideas,” or “Four Loko reveals new Sour hard seltzer with 14 percent alcohol volume and now all of Twitter is drunk on nostalgia.”
What is likely is they are paid ads disguised as news stories or partnerships where they get a taste of the sales price if someone clicks through and buys something. I have no problem with that, I do have a problem with it being hidden from readers.
What isn’t clickbait or paid content isn’t news either.
A guy no one ever heard of, who claims to have been a Trump supporter who “saw the light,” puts up a blog post “apologizing” to Barack Obama on his birthday suddenly becomes, “Ex-Trump supporter apologizes on Obama's birthday for ‘hate I gave him’ after realizing ‘I did have racist tendencies.’”
In 2016, TIME declared that Kay Perry “just gave herself the best birthday present ever.” What was it? The story noted “(t)he ‘Teenage Dream’ singer gifted herself with the opportunity to vote for the first possible female president in U.S. history.”
TIME and Newsweek were once important, they used to do real, in-depth investigative journalism. Their magazines were must-reads for people wanting a deep dive into the issues of the day. Now there isn’t enough to either to line a birdcage.
I’m using these magazines as examples because their collapses are more profound than others. Cable news used to do news too, now they play roles; they’re table reads for rough drafts of scripts provided by political operatives coupled with the latest celebrity tweets. And, as the uproar at the New York Times over accidentally (and temporarily) writing an honest headline about the President’s speech after the shootings in El Paso and Dayton showed, newspapers are long gone as well.
If you ever wonder why it is that so many of your fellow Americans believe obvious lies – Russian collusion, election hacking, socialism works – look no further than what journalism has become.
There is no institution in America with a larger gap between its potential and its realization; its purpose and its reality, than journalism. Existing institutions can’t be reformed, they need to be destroyed. Newsweek selling for a dollar and losing value from there is an indication that the end is approaching, it just can’t come soon enough.
I don't even watch current release movies because of their incessant whining, politicizing and (im)moralizing.
I get my news from a very few internet forums which I suppose is why the above mentioned enemies of decency, are so determined to destroy the internet.
My dentist’s office had a copy of Time during the 2016 election season, so I had the opportunity to read their political coverage.
It was Democratic National Committee talking points—total propaganda and lies.
These magazines can’t crumble into the dustbin of history fast enough for me!
The media has a lot of responsibility for this, but the public isn’t exactly creating a demand for serious journalism. The public seems to have an infinite appetite for fluff like celebrities and other nonsense.
People mag and tabloid rags are near the checkout, and sell quite well. And these people are allowed to vote?
I’ve bought magazines on ebay. The best ones were published in the 1920’s. The 1930’s aren’t bad either. Even a 1960’s Reader’s Digest is far superior to today’s version. (RD is also found in French and Spanish on ebay.)
It's a vicious, swirling cycle. The dumber Americans become, the more insipid the news becomes, the more vulgar entertainment becomes.........
The more insipid the news becomes, the dumber Americans become....
Know what else is a vicious, swirling cycle? A flushed toilet which, pretty much describes this country.
Our only hope is for the Lord to intervene. But if one reads one's Bible, He doesn't intervene when nations start to suffer as a result of their own disobedience and sinful rebellion.
Gal 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
I stopped reading Time long before ‘16. I’m amazed they have lasted this long, in any configuration.
When? Fifty or sixty years ago. But they have long been in decline.
It’s pretty amazing to compare a copy of Time magazine from, say, 1968 to a copy from today.
The bias is different, the writing is different, the expectations about the readers is different. It’s sad how much we have declined.
Bump
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