`Not your father's Oldsmobile' (George Will)

Townhall.com ^ | April 24, 2005 | George Will

[The Great Yazoo]

WASHINGTON -- If you awake before dawn you probably hear a daily sound that may become as anachronistic as the clatter of horses' hooves on urban cobblestones. The sound is the slap of the morning paper on the sidewalk.

65 and older 60 pct. 50-64 52 pct. 30-49 39 pct. 18-29 23 pct.

[bad company]

Oops wrong thread. I was looking for something on ted kennedy.

[The Great Yazoo]

Table should be as follows:
65 and older --- 60 pct.
50-64 --- 52 pct.
30-49 --- 39 pct.
18-29 --- 23 pct.

[The Great Yazoo]

Oops wrong thread. I was looking for something on ted kennedy

LOL

[R. Scott]

Circulation might not be as low if the papers would stick to reporting news, and leave commentary to the editorial page. Even the younger people – 20-somethings- see it if their comments at my favorite watering hole are an indication. Most seem to use the morning paper for the comics, crossword and movie schedules and ignore the “news” sections.
Around 20 years ago the Chicago Tribune bought both our morning and afternoon papers. They soon closed the afternoon paper leaving only the morning paper – which they use to “educate” us poor dumb Southern Redneck Republicans in the Right Way of Thinking.

[martin_fierro]

When, after the misreported Tet offensive of 1968 (a U.S. military victory described as a crushing defeat), Cronkite declared Vietnam a ``stalemate,'' he spoke, as Mindich says, to ``a captive audience.'' Nearly 80 percent of television sets in use at the dinner hour were tuned to one of the three network newscasts, and Cronkite had the largest share.

I take it as part of Cronkite's damnation that he's lived long enough to witness the ramifications of what his bias helped create.

[goldstategop]

Nah. This a welcome development and the media has been asking for it for a long time. Its just about the only business which habitually insults, offends and looks down on its customers as if they needed it more than it needed them. And with their liberal orientation, they're now circling the drain to oblivion. Like with the Oldsmobile brand, they could change but when they finally do, it'll be too late to make a comeback in the affections of the people who read, listen to and watch them.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[VadeRetro]

Basically, the age and the "I-read-a-newspaper-yesterday" percent figure are the same. Nice, simple rule of thumb.

[HankReardon]

I have often hear people say, " I do not follow the news, it's too depressing". I tell them, "that is the desired effect, they want you not paying attention."

[KidGlock]

Of course, this WAS his father's Oldsmobile.

[TXBSAFH]

My wife and I only buy a Sunday dead tree legacy media. We look at the ads and for teh tv schedule. Beyond that it is only cheap packing material.

[rellimpank]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1389705/posts

An amusing part of this was that it appeared a day earlier electronically than in print--

[The Great Yazoo]

Same article different title.
Sorry!

[rellimpank]

--no problem--good ones need to be reposted about every 12-14 hours---gets better exposure--

[whd23]

Bias aside, a big problem with newspapers is that they contain lots of information that may not appeal to every customer. That is to say they are too generalized. For example: if I buy a paper, I end up tossing more than 1/2 of it unread; Sports, "Arts & Leisure," "Help Wanted," "Automobiles", and usually the Business section gets dumped. Sure there are days that I want to leaf through the Automobiles section, but I do my real car shopping on-line.

[Grut]

The future of the big media that the young have abandoned is not certain. But do you remember when an automobile manufacturer, desperately seeking young customers, plaintively promised that its cars were ``not your father's Oldsmobile''? Do you remember Oldsmobiles?

Oof!

[basil]

They carry their media around with them: 79 percent of 8-to-18-year-olds have portable CD, tape or MP3 players. Fifty-five percent have hand-held video game players. Sony's PlayStation Portable, which plays music, games and movies, sold more than 500,000 units in the first two days after its March debut.

I must be awfully dense, but I'm trying to work out why a video game player, etc. is considered part of the media.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

Perhaps the correct way to represent a newspaper now is - Yesterday's news reported today.

I look at the ads and read some of the comics.

[rellimpank]

--and what I find most amusing here in the Las Vegas area is that the TV news isn't much better---even the local stuff--

[DoughtyOne]

There is a dynamic that goes wanting in this article. Will touches on it, but doesn't cash in to my way of thinking.

When I was young, I did value the print medium. It was a time when the print media did do investigative reporting. They did it because of their bias, but at least they did it.

Look at the different approaches, the investigations of Nixon vs those of Clinton. With Nixon they scrounged and dug for every paltry clue they could come up with. They even made up fictitious characters and stated they were "Deep Throat". During Clinton's tenure, bonified witnesses were shreded. During Nixon's nobody even demanded who Deep Throat was, much less attacked their character. Thirty plus years down the turnpike, and we still don't know who Deep Throat was, and essentially it doesn't matter.

With the evaporation of credibility, came the evaporation of readership. Will secumbs to the theory that exploding sources of media induced the decline of the print media. I'll buy that to an extent, but if the major paper in my region were unbiased, if it did execute investigative journalism without bias, if it was credible, it would be hitting my doorstep each morning.

It isn't. It doesn't.

People can lay off the decline of the MSM's strangle-hold on the nation as an indication of declining knowledge seeking youth. To an extent that is undoubtedly true. What goes unsaid, is that many of them are quite aware of the bias of the MSM, and just opt out of being lied to.

What this does create though, is an atmosphere where youth can be led astray by lefist propaganda. It has amazed me how some today have bought into the leftist Marxist agenda lock stock and barrel. That is an unfortunate offshoot of remaining MSM influence, and an increasing leftist propaganda effort that captures some young minds and destroys them.

One must recognize though, that the youth are not the only ones affected by this dynamic. Witness a time when the likes of John Kerry could gain a respectable slice of the vote. Even in the 70's, during the hey day of leftist propaganda in the United States, George McGovern was swamped by those who saw him for what he was.

Pitty those in our time didn't see John Kerry as clearly.

[WL-law]

During Clinton's tenure, bonified witnesses were shreded.

Bonified AND shreded?? Ouch, that had to hurt BAD!!

[M Kehoe]

I buy the Sunday edition of our local fish wrap once a month. I use it for many things, none of which is reading.

5.56mm

[The Great Yazoo]

NYT and WP and CBS had it out for Nixon, but not for Clinton. Simple as that!

[Rembrandt_fan]

It would never occur to Cronkite to rethink his performance and attitudes during the Vietnam War--the Tet offensive particularly--much less admit wrongdoing even if he did come to that realization. Dan Rather and others are in the same boat. To say they were wrong on any one thing might lead them to rigorous self-examination of all of their positions. Can't have that.

I don't think liberal media bias is a conscious conspiracy directed by faceless elites (for the most part, anyway). I think it is a widespread, unspoken consensus, a matter of like-minded people confined within the same professional sphere, unopposed by alternative viewpoints. Lack of dissent tends to reinforce and narrow the collective worldview among that particular group--in this case, mass-media journalists. To these people, propaganda is truth.

[Freee-dame]

NYT and WP and CBS had it out for Nixon, but not for Clinton.

Just compare the coverage of President Bush's National Guard service with coverage of Kerry's medal accumulation.

[R. Scott]

Packing material, bird cage liners …

[LouD]

Several Wisconsin state Senators held a series of hearings on the issue of voter identification - which is quite contentious here. One of the hearings was held in my community. Many local people showed up and testified, and most of them testified in favor of requiring voters to produce ID. A rat representative saw fit to attend, and was one of the few people to speak against the proposed measure.

The local leftist newspaper attended and reported on the press conference held by the 'rat rep before the hearing. They interviewed several of the handful of union lefties who showed up from outside the community to speak against the measure. They interviewed one token proponent of the bill, and devoted an entire sentence of the article to his viewpoint.

They did not cover the actual hearing.

Is it any wonder that I don't subscribe to this newspaper? I would like to subscribe, if only for the local content - but cannot bring myself to do so.

[Doohickey]

Why SHOULD I read the paper when I can send JimRob a donation and read it here instead?

[DCPatriot]

The honest-to-god truth why at 59 I don't read newspapers that much anymore?

I've already heard and know the latest news through talk radio and/or FreeRepublic and Drudge.

[Doohickey]

Because those devices play electronic media. How about selling the local paper as e-book for a quarter an issue rather than $1? Or local and national news casts as MP3 for a dime?

[pabianice]

When, after the misreported Tet offensive of 1968 (a U.S. military victory described as a crushing defeat), Cronkite declared Vietnam a ``stalemate,'' he spoke, as Mindich says, to ``a captive audience.'' Nearly 80 percent of television sets in use at the dinner hour were tuned to one of the three network newscasts, and Cronkite had the largest share. I take it as part of Cronkite's damnation that he's lived long enough to witness the ramifications of what his bias helped create.

Nope. The old bastard is today just as cheerful when misreporting what has happened in Vietnam since 1975. He's a hopeless Marxist shill (of course, his devotion to communism has not in any way stopped him from personally enjoying the great wealth his misreporting gave him).

[Beelzebubba]

In 1990, I subscribed to the local daily, sometimes to WSJ, and listened to NPR.

Now, I read the most important articles from two local dailies (on the Internet), plus articles and opinion analysis from dozens of papers and columnists around the globe, and observe instant interactive analysis of the articles.

Until recently, I listened to hours of commercial talk radio per day, and occasionally purchased CDs for the "shuffle-play." Now, I listen to MUSIC on XM radio, switching among 5 Jazz stations, and wouldn't dream about buying another CD when XM does all the work in selecting and purchasing such wonderful music.

Beginning with a relocation 3 years ago, we have not had any Cable or Dish, and have used the rabbit ears for only a few hours of TV watching, plus some political conventions and the like. Essentially All of our TV viewing has been watching DVDs, and you can bet we will stop buying those when video streaming is available. (When we get settled in to our current home, we will have cable again.)

dozens

[Jumpmaster]

...just to add my tagline!

[OldPossum]

It would never occur to Cronkite to rethink his performance and attitudes during the Vietnam War...

I don't think that Cronkite is intelligent enough to rethink anything.

[DeFault User]

Baby boomers who became adults in the 1970s consume less journalism than their parents did.

There's damn little journalism to consume. Even what should be simple articles can't or won't give you the "who, what, where, when and how".

Local TV news is even worse. Last week I heard teasers for the 11 o'clock news which included breaking news on a sanitation worker observed urinating in the driveway of an alert crimestopper citizen and a real tear jerker about a dog that was run over. I know that 'if it bleeds, it leads', but it has become laughably absurd.

[EricT.]

Oldsmowhatsits?

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

I just don't trust them. I read them, but I don't respect them even a smidge. They're a big fat pack of partisan liars.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

I was expecting 'SS Oldsmobile" also!

[okie01]

Helluva post.

Excellent insights.

There's another explanation, though, for why newspapers don't do investigative reporting anymore: it costs money...and publishable results aren't assured.

In an environment where circulation is declining, putting pressure on revenues, the accountants are going to squelch any budget requests for "investigative reporting".

Thus, aside from their crippling bias, newspapers are caught in a cost-cutting spiral -- they can't invest in improving their editorial product.

[republicandiva]

Our local County Executive and County Board are trying to change the laws that require full disclosure in "print" media of complete minutes from county board meetings, hearings, etc. Instead, a brief summary would be in the local newspaper, the majority of info would be available online through their website. The savings to the county - approximately $80,000 annually and a swift kick in the rear to our leftist, liberal rag! The question is how many people who ordinarily "glance" at the minutes of the proceedings in print (in microscopic font, BTW) will now seek out the online version?

BTW, my first "new" car was a 1975 newly engineered 6-cylinder Olds Omega - shipped from the factory in Van Nuys in Robin's egg blue, white vinyl roof and white leather interior (no comments, it was a girl's car) - one of the best cars I ever owned!

[add925]

Dump a Paper - Save a Tree

[Hatteras]

My father's Oldsmobile...

[The Great Yazoo]

Is the actor on the left DeForrest Kelly? Looks like him to me anyway.

[FormerACLUmember]

Ironically the only way I ever read the eloquent George Will is on the Internet.

[fish hawk]

trouble is, Cronkite is too senile to know what is going on. He still thinks he is great.

[RVN Airplane Driver]

Daughty one and you both have insightful posts....For instance the Dallas Morning news runs stuff from the AP and the NY Slimes...both stinking to high heaven with media bias. There is starting to be some backlash and letters to the editor about the slimes articles....which I doubt will do any good. They will know when I stop my subscription it will be an indication that they are in big trouble with their lazy reporting because I have read the paper daily since I could read...

[RonDog]

From Fido969:

...NYT vs. the S&P 500:

[alrea]

Circulation might not be as low if the papers would stick to reporting news, and leave commentary to the editorial

never; remember that most journalism students choose the profession to "change the world" which obviously means transferring income through law and government no matter how inefficient.

[R. Scott]

… which obviously means transferring income through law and government no matter how inefficient.

And trying to make The People believe our Constitution is a “living document” that should be reinterpreted every year or so.

[Jackknife]

Our family car during the 70's was the fire engine red Vista Cruiser (with side paneling, of course) that my ol' man bought new in '72. Man, that thing would haul the mail !!!