Newspapers dying. You should care.
Debra Saunders, who’s a (the?) conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, is upset by conservative glee every time a dead-tree newspaper takes a hit:
Conservatives rooting for newspapers’ demise should be careful what they wish for. Yes, fewer reporters mean fewer biased stories about lesbian immigrants fighting an unsympathetic establishment. But there also won’t be as many stories about sanctuary city policies gone bad, the latest zany law out of San Francisco City Hall or the growing bite that public employee pension systems are taking out of city and county services. They don’t understand that Fox News and talk radio aren’t going to report on stories that require local beat reporting and time-consuming and expensive investigation.
She’s got a point there. Remember that the story of Mayor Smoove’s murderous drug-dealing gang member illegal alien shuttle service and “cultural affirmation” grants was broken and and developed by the SF Chronicle’s Jaxon Van Derbeken. Major kudos to the paper and to Van Derbeken for his work there. And the paper’s done a good job of keeping up with the investigation of the murder of Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey and the connections to the rotten racket calling itself Your Black Muslim Bakery.
As much as I’m for amateur and semi-pro sleuthing, the fact remains that most news gets reported because someone, somehow, gets paid to report it. Obviously, newspapers need to adapt and respond to market pressures. And maybe someday maybe the web will be organized to deliver the same degree of full-time local reporting and investigation that print media does, and a paperless news environment will come about. Until then I’m going to keep subscribing to a paper–even though I’m not in any particular hurry to get cable TV.
When we moved to NoVa, one of the first things I did was sign up for the Washington Times. They’ve got a great stable of investigators there, especially (but not limited to) Audrey Hudson, Jerry Seper, and Sara Carter. I’d been reading (and linking) their writing for years and now that I’m local and wanted a daily paper, I thought I’d support them.
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{Post by See-Dubya.}
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Trackbacks
- The Other McCain: Newspaper death watch, pt. MCXXVII
- Why The “Mainstream” Media Is Dying « I Took The Red Pill (and escaped the Matrix)
- Newspapers dying. You should care. — The 2008 Elections
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Liberal bias is its own punishment. It makes newspaper management incapable of recognizing that they have lost touch with their customers, and what to do about it.
Still, after all is said and done, if we look at the good that has been performed by newspapers and the bad, helping to transform the US into a socialistic welfare state, with a rubber constitution and a two party dictatorship, I would say good riddance to the newspapers.
Impoverishing America intellectually is one of the aims of the left. I don’t think that the left really cares about what they are doing. If publishers want to become relevant again they are going to have to report the news and quit trying so hard to shape opinion in the guise of reporting.
I do think that there may be a place for Michelle Malkin, Pajamas Media, Townhall etc. and others to associate in some way to develop real reporting capacity. The network needs to grow. I am not so worried about the national scene for now but I do think that there are severe threats to democratic government in our cities and local governments brought on by a dearth of real reporting.
For all of the print newspapers and magazines which may support the left there are also those that support th right. The fact that hard reporting is being hurt by newspapers going under should concern us all. A great deal of the content on the internet that we all make so much use of is supplied by those working the streets still supported by and paid by those very newspapers. If they go the way of the dodo then who will do the reporting? Drudge? When did he or anyone like him last get on a plane, make the phone calls, stake out a news site? Will it be the bloggers at home in their underwear?
I hardly think so. We still need the old time hard reporting provided only by those with physical buildings, paper, locations and reporters.
von Rum
I do not care.
What we are witnessing is the market forces working, and the reason these papers are headed for bankruptcy is because their product is mostly worthless.
If the owners really care enough to try to save these institutions of shame filled liberalism they can start by hiring new editors, and those editors can try using more conservative writers.
In a nut shell, they did this to themselves, and it is up to them to correct their mistakes.
What has earned its death will die, replaced by better things, and a variety of these.
I stopped receiving the local paper here over a year ago, and I gotta tell you…the only thing I miss is the comics section. Anything else I want that is written in the same light i can get from DU, HuffPo or any other Liberal conspiracy driven blog.
I miss my daily “Get Fuzzy”.
The existing print media (and much of the electronic media) should disappear ASAP. They have deceived, dissembled, and abused the publc trust long enough. They are almost entirely agents of the world-wide LEFT. They hate our country, and they hate the notion of people living their lives, making their own decisions, and going their own way without close supervision from over-weening government. The qualities that draw people from all quarters of the world are the very characteristics our ‘press corps.’ despises.
Actually, the last time I checked, Al Gore had not invented the internet at the time the Federalist Papers were written. The printing press was an important tool in the Revolutionary War, and can be one in the current cultural “war” we are in.
Despite popular belief, there are large segments of the population who do not have access or cannot use the internet to get information – such as the elderly and the poor. And there are segments who do not use the internet to gather information. Yes, times are changing. But it is unfortunate that the newspapers cannot or will not adapt to the times (including throwing out the bias).
I think it would make for an interesting experiment for some prominent left-leaning newspaper to go one year showing due diligence to the spirit of fair reporting, and see what happens to their circulation. Problem is, no liberal publisher would survive the scorn from his fellow cocktail party sophists.
p.s. My first post here…. thanks M!
On August 11th, 2008 at 2:45 pm, Dimsdale said: Springfield Republican
Haha… I remember them. They hired a telemarketing firm that kept calling back “hang-ups” and harrassing them. Ripped us off because they kept delivering after the subscription expired – to a home with a “SOLD” sign next to the paper tube – then DEMANDED money. Bunch of crooks.
Now, I’m gonna date myself here: Back in the 60s, my H.S. english class was given an assignment to write a news article – anything we wanted. The article had to include the four “W”s; Who, What, Where, and When. There was no “how” and DEFINITELY no “Why” back then. “How” just didn’t exist (probably too hard to confirm?) and “Why” was STRICTLY forbidden because it was interpretive. “Why” would result in points off the assignment. Also resulting in points off was any use of connotative words where denotative would do. We were to stick to verifyable facts (4 Ws) and use only descriptive language – keep emotion out of it.
I miss the “National Observer” — went out of print in the mid-seventies. It was a news-weekly on newsprint, no glossy pages, minimal photos, little or no advertising, and all the opinion content was on pages CLEARLY marked opinion. There was more info in that paper than a week’s worth of the local rag.
P.
Lots of people couldn’t read in the 1780s, but that didn’t stop the 85 essays of the Federalist Papers from circulating. Hell, lots of people can’t read today. This doesn’t mean that we can’t transition more media to non-print sources. How does local TV news do it?
Relevance is an important word. If the media cannot learn to be relevant to their audience they must fail. Attempts to keep them alive are foolish. Adopting extremely biased one-sided views arbitrarily chops away half a newspaper’s readership. Continued extremely biased reporting starts to sound like intellectual masturbation, which is off-putting even to most liberal readers.
I don’t want the newspapers to die. BUT, I will not do a bloody thing to try to preserve the LATimes until their reporting begins to sound a little less like their staff is composed of a collection of jerks who are my sworn enemies.
{^_^}