Enjoy it while you can.
Like many people my age I can credit the Sunday Funnies with helping me learn to read. The comics are still the first part of the paper I go to on the weekend or weekdays for that matter. I know that you can read the comics online but it is just not the same. I enjoy making a mess in the living room as I skim all the different sections usually starting with the sports section then moving on to Opinion/Review and the news. I even like clipping the coupons anticipating my next shopping trip to the grocery store.
The financial news from the publishing industry has been bleak the last few years as the papers try to adapt their business models to the internet age. Every poor financial report from the New York Times brings a gleeful headline on Drudge and other right wing blogs. Be careful for what you ask for folks, if the Times goes under you will lose your favorite whipping boy.
The credit crunch is not helping, forcing the publishers of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News to scramble for cash. Jane is reporting that the Inky is now putting an exact copy of the print edition online and charging less than for home delivery. She also gives us an update about Pennsylvania stories that appear in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) every week. The WSJ is a good technical rag but it's not a real newspaper. I look through the thing and I can't find a sports section or the comics let alone a crossword puzzle and NO coupons.
I can't imagine a big city without a daily paper but that just might happen in the next few years. The thing we have going for us in this area is that we are always a few years behind the rest of the country so we will have the print editions of the Voice, Leader and Times after the rest of them go under.
I do not think the internbet is killing the newspaper. I think it is a combination of dumber people and lack push in our schools. I am sure some high school teachers push the NY times on thier students, but we should have middle school teachers pushing the Times Leader in NEPA, and in philadelphia the Inquierer, but in the subrubs the students should read the local daily.)
ReplyDeleteAlso the NY times is clerly biased(with the extion of Linda Greenhouse who covers The Court,) the conservatives are brooks and kristol who are both really liberals. Krisols father loves trotskey and brooks was ok until he started working for kristol.
The national paper of record should be the Washington Post. The writers may have a slant, but they are much smarter and less full of themselves. Bob Woodward wrote 4 books about Bush 2 favorbale two unfavorable. You do not get that at the times.
Gort,
ReplyDeleteNow that For Better or Worse is gone the comics hold far less appeal for me.
The WSJ had a note recently that the Inky was talking to Politico about providing them with DC news, since the Inky (along with a lot of other papers) doesn't have a DC reporter anymore. And Politicker is negotiating with papers to provide state level coverage. Maybe that shift will keep the papers going for awhile. I hope so. We need a robust press to keep a good eye on government.
Thanks for the shoutout.
Newspapers gone in a few years? Hogwash. One of the great myths spurred on by those who would hope it to be true for their own gain. It's easier to hold a paper in your hands on the john than a laptop. Keep dreaming.
ReplyDeleteNewspapers are only as valuable as what's in them. Maybe when mainstream media stops with all of their liberal crap more people will find value in printed news.
ReplyDeleteI, for one, am sick of reading "predictions" and polls and other items that are not news.
An article about how some professor at a unknown university feels it's going to be a harsh winter is not news. Winter didn't happen yet. An article about how bad the Christmas shopping season is going to be (like we hear every year) is not news. It's a prediciton. And if they're wrong, you never hear about it again.
And I'm sick of hearing one sided stories. There was an article about how terrible Obama supporters are being treated. I've read articles from other papers about how terrible McCain supporters were treated. If they don't give both sides then they have to live with the outcome of their actions.
Everyone thought talk radio was dead. Conservative talk shows kept it going. Air America was an example of the failed theory that people want liberal opinions shoved down their throat.
And I know, not everyone wants conservative opinions shoved down THEIR throats. That's why we are in a free market economy where consumption decides who survives and who doesn't.
I'd like to see Matt Drudge have that dorky hat pulled down on his eyes and given a atomic wedgee!
ReplyDeleteAnd I love the folks who get their talking points spoon fed to them by AM terestrial talk radio. AAR is a joke and btw is run by former Limbaugh show staff.
The "free market" is not free. Globalist fat cats decided t propagate the airwaves with their far far right wing views. So while Republicans and Libertarians are brain washing America about the "free market" of radio. Let's not forget the market worked better for the consumer/listener with reguulation.
more views, more voices, more choices. this Uber-Libertarian corporate media monopolistic system is rather Commie like. Only the rullers views shall be heard or spoken, any dissent is anti-patriotic.
Its similair to radio in the USSR, China, North korea, Saddams Iraq, US occupied Iraq, and Augusto Pinochets Chile to name a few examples.
Rush and Hannity will only talk about AAR, and forget to mention Jones Radio network, NovaM radio, head on radio network, and Sirius Left to name a few networks that do Left talk.
Thats why I have high speed internet and Sirius radio!
I guess some of you have high speed so you can quickly load that piece of shit Drudge report ultra fast.
A 12K modem, could load that crummy site fast.