Colorado's oldest newspaper, which launched in Denver in 1859, printed its last edition Friday
As they say, "That's all she wrote." 
Posted on 02/27/2009 7:04:03 AM PST by Redbob
“And another one down, and another one dowm, an another one bites the dust! Another one bites the dust!”
ALL propaganda press must die and their presstitute handlers starve for a while to hopefully learn that people don’t buy their agenda driven lies !
Hope their hunger for food is as great as America’s hunger for truth !
Doom on em !
Well said. Rights are not rights unless they belong to us all.
A newspaper is a business, however, and though we may have that unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, there is no guarantee of success. Newspapers are fast fading from the landscape because of many different reasons. Content is only one.
There is good and bad with papers starving out........ Even the good ones are going down due costs etc and old hippie tree huggers who don’t like to lose a tree or two.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSEaHyzbqTA
Colorado's oldest newspaper, which launched in Denver in 1859, printed its last edition Friday
As they say, "That's all she wrote."
Yep. On balance, it's good.
Please tell me the last time you dealt with the SPJ.
This has nothing at all to do with First Amendment rights, or lack thereof any more than the plummeting sales of Dixie Chicks albums did when they shot their mouths off.
To equate the death of a newspaper due to shrinking customer base or poor management as a suppression of free speech is to miss the point entirely, and to contrast the desire of some to keep and bear arms with the publication of a newspaper for profit is erroneous.
There is no First Amendment right to make money by publishing a newspaper or running a radio talk show. There is a First Amendment right to engage in both of those activities, but that is superseded by the requirement that you pay by your own means to do it. I know the NPR crowd, and the Fairness Doctrine advocates think otherwise, but their positions are not valid.
I personally detest the New York Times, and I do feel they have endangered national security partly for a few pieces of Judas Silver, and partly out of partisan political motivation. Are their cases where freedom of speech is not absolute? Yes, there are, and that limitation has been in and out of the Supreme Court many times over the years. There are times I thought the NYT should have been punished for things they published.
But I, and most conservatives are not interested in seeing the government get involved in closing down newspapers, radio stations or television stations just because they happen to be liberal 80% of the time and we disagree with them.
However, it is sweet to see them lose money hand over fist as they bungle their attempts at the very type of thing they attack from their socialist leaning perches most often, the free market. I can guarantee you right now, there is a large portion of those institutions that are stupid enough right now to wish they were government funded. As usual, they can’t think beyond stage one (as Thomas Sowell would put it) and see the ramifications of that.
In any case, you cannot frame this in a morally relativistic frame as “...knee-jerk blabber by both right and left...” because it isn’t. You may take offense at the un-Christian aspect of taking pleasure in the misfortune of others, but you cannot present this in any way as a First Amendment or Constitutional issue, because that is simply wrong. It is a capitalist free market issue.
You hit the nail on the head, JR. I would be more than happy to subscribe to any periodical (or daily news) that reported with true journalism. No bias, no trying to cram something down my throat that I don't believe, no lies, no distortions, no whining. Just investigated truth. Let me make up my own mind. (Looks like that is what RMN readers did, eh?)
Getting stuff for free, while always a winner, cannot be coupled with providing it for nothing very long without consequence. GM could give away it's cars for free, I suppose, but about model year two there might just be a marked drop in quality.
"To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" was the mantra of J-schools after Watergate and, yes, every cub reporter thought they were destined to change the world (what kid doesn't?). But I don't think it was this mindset that killed off newspapers as much as it was technology. Even conservative papers are dying in this "winter of disconnect" re Old Media. The internet provides a much better (and cheaper) avenue for the small and medium advertiser and considering where most papers got their revenue it's no wonder they are all morbund.
When (if?) the gathering and providing of written news can again be made profitable, the New Media will have a great story, a cautionary tale that speaks to the need for balance and objectivity... one for future journalists. Until that time I fear America will be in the grip of free rumor and hype masquading as news and a misinformed public will lurch toward the day when it no longer values real journalists at any price!
I am certainly looking for a way out. If it weren’t for two reporters leaving right before a hiring freeze (largely because they saw this coming to a degree and they just got tired of daily deadline stress also), there would have been layoffs at my libertarian paper as well.
Never. And why should I? They’re powerless. They’re nothing more than a glorified fraternity. They have no power to stop people from writing/reporting whatever they want to say. Oh, sure, they can kick you out of their little fraternity, and presumably some people might be down in the mouth about that, but there’s a difference here between the SPJ and real professional state boards of professionals:
You can’t sue a journalist for malpractice.
Who says so? The SPJ that you cite:
“The SPJ Code of Ethics is voluntarily embraced by thousands of journalists, regardless of place or platform, and is widely used in newsrooms and classrooms as a guide for ethical behavior. The code is intended not as a set of “rules” but as a resource for ethical decision-making. It is not — nor can it be under the First Amendment — legally enforceable.”
That’s it. That’s where the rubber meets the road. All the talk, blather and BS that journalists put forth about their “profession” and their precious “code of ethics” is utter noise.
When a doctor, lawyer, engineer, CPA, etc commits acts of malpractice, whether through negligence, fraud or intentional harm, they a) will have a hearing in front of their state board, and stand a real chance to lose their license, b) without their license, they can no longer practice medicine/law/engineering/public accounting, c) are subject to strict liability in civil court, d) if they don’t have professional malpractice insurance, they’re going to have to pay.
A doctor/lawyer/engineer/CPA doesn’t have to “voluntarily” adhere to their code of ethics. They have to adhere or suffer punitive sanctions or possible loss of license.
When I can sue a journalist for malpractice (not libel or slander, but MALPRACTICE) and they suffer loss of their career and a loss in court that awards restitution and punitive damages, call me.
One Hellofa Obituary you wrote there - totally hit the mark!
Yeah, even if "it's not half bad", these rags rely on the major news/wire services that pollute their innards: AP, Rooters, NYT News Service, CNN, BBC.
If Rupert Murdoch were on the ball, he would make a concerted effort to replace AP rather than worry about acquiring the NYT.
yitbos
Las Vegas Review Journal - The only daily in S. Nevada, except for the 8 pg. LV Sun that the court said had to be delivered by the RJ as an insert.
yitbos
And when the first critiques of print news appeared on the web, the MSM was quick to sue.
yitbos
I don’t know a lot about the Rocky Mountain News, but I do know they printed this story a few years ago:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/special-reports/final-salute/
This story moved me like none other I have ever read, so they get a couple of props from me.
The newspapers in this country are (in large part) a cheering section for the most liberal ideas. They do not report the news anymore, they issue propaganda statements for the democrapic party.
The internet and talk radio are both interactive sources of government criticism. The only time most of the newspapers criticize the government is when there is a Christian or heterosexual, or capitalist or anti-muslim, or white male, pro 2nd amendment, etc. Get the point. I never thought that only right wingers brought these newspapers down.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.