Posted on 04/17/2009 7:51:17 PM PDT by ReformationFan
The recent announcement by the New York Times that it might close down the venerable Boston Globe, unless the paper can cut costs and begin to make money, came as a shock to many Bostonians. The Times bought the Globe in 1993 for $1.1 billion because it assumed that in an area with Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Boston University, Boston College and other schools of higher learning, they would have lots of readers and make lots of money. But this much-touted Athens of America, which prides itself on its intellectual history, has become, like the rest of America, a victim of our general literacy decline.
The problem is now so severe that the National Endowment for the Arts issued an alarming report, "Reading at Risk," in November 2007, revealing the precipitous decline of literacy in America. According to the report, the number of 17-year-olds who never read for pleasure increased from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004. About half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 never read books for pleasure.
Endowment Chairman Dana Gioia stated: "This is a massive social problem. We are losing the majority of the new generation. They will not achieve anything close to their potential because of poor reading." The survey found that only a third of high school seniors read at a proficient level. "And proficiency is not a high standard," said Gioia. "We're not asking them to be able to read Proust in the original. We're talking about reading the daily newspaper."
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Easy... a majority of the population can not read.
How about we get someone in Congress to propose a TAX!
A TAX on NEWSPRINT!
Whereas the production of newspapers causes trees to be cut down, hauled by polluting trucks to polluting paper mills, and hauled from paper mills to publishers and
Whereas the production of newspapers requires toxic ink and solvents and energy wasting machinery and
Whereas the distribution of newspapers requires the use of dirty internal combustion engines and
Whereas a large portion of every landfill is used for discarded newspapers,
Therefore:
Be it resolved that a Newsprint tax, of $1,000.00 per pound, be charged to EVERY newspaper with a daily subscription, within the United States!
________________________________________
We should get some Republican to propose THIS as an amendment to any “cap and trade” or “carbon tax” proposal that comes up!
Maybe we can make it like “Cap and Trade” and use the revenue generated, from this tax on dirty dinosaur newspapers, to subsidize a tax credit for home computers and digital devices?
Or, we could use the money to subsidize talk radio! Well, those guys really don’t need any help!
I don’t get it cause I have a computer and read on that. No dirty paper mess.
i thought of this years ago:
it’s ironic that the los angeles times cannot be read by the mexican immigrants’ children.
los angeles county counts about 10,000,000 people, 2/3 of which are mexican.
if the union schools had properly educated only several hundred thousands of children to read,
the los angeles times would be having no problemas.
si.
I can read...it’s just that I don’t agree with what I’m reading in the various hometown papers. Whatever happened to “nothing but the facts” journalism? I won’t even buy the Sunday paper for the coupons any more.
Late edition, perfect size for reading on the subway and train ... otherwise an early incarnation of the NYP.
> Endowment Chairman Dana Gioia stated: “This is a massive social problem. We are losing the majority of the new generation. They will not achieve anything close to their potential because of poor reading.”
You mean, reading the LA Times and the Washington Post makes you smarter? That must be more than 80-proof Kool Aid she’s drinking.
TELL THE TRUTH.
(I fully realize that all sensible, thinking Americans — that’d be conservatives —fully understand this information. I post it only for the brain-dead Obama voters and statists — that’d be liberals — who might have slipped out of their rubber rooms over at DU and are lurking, hacking or generally causing trouble here at FR.)
Recently, I read what probably amounts to the obituary for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. (My wife insists on buying the Sunday edition for the TV guide.) It joins the growing list of print newspapers in deep, deep financial trouble. The LA Times, NY Times, Boston Globe, Cleveland Plain Dealer, etc.
Here’s my horseback analysis of why they’re heading for extinction.
As generally liberal statist propaganda outlets, they have for decades supported a government “education” system (and I used the term very loosely) dominated by the NEA and the idiot bureaucrats running the DOE in Washington. The unions and the NEA have largely hurled the traditional three “Rs” and critical thinking skills under the bus in favor of touchy-feely diversity training, self-esteem building, political correctness, African studies, teaching Hispanic kids in SPANISH instead of teaching them English on day one, social promotions, basket weaving, navel gazing, etc., etc.
I won’t dwell on it here but would, instead, refer you to my personal experience with the government schools here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0lR1KQq2-U
What I cannot grasp is precisely why, after effectively dumbing down the members of the American populace who have traversed the conveyor belt of mediocrity called government schools, the overeducated owners and operators of these newspapers are surprised that this population has lost its interest in READING NEWSPAPERS: Many of them CAN’T read!!
Those folks – especially conservatives who resent the increasingly liberal drivel found in the major papers — who can and DO read things are now getting their information from the Internet or, for those too busy to actually read, from largely conservative talk radio (which helps explain why Algore, Pelosi, Reid, et al feel the need to control both these formats).
Their statist dumbing down has produced huge numbers of voters who lacked the critical thinking skills necessary to determine that their present-voting, slick-talking liar of a candidate had virtually NO management or legislative experience. And the economic illiterates they have elevated to high office in Washington for years have produced a growing economic crisis which has even those with any money left spending it on “luxuries” like food, clothing and shelter. Newspapers and advertising therein are far down the list.
And did I mention that the economic collapse Obama “inherited” has its genesis in Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act? It was then expanded by Clinton and stridently defended by Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters and Barney Frank (who was sleeping with Herb Moses while he held a top spot at – appropriately – Fannie). Only government could turn the dream of home ownership for poor folks into a NIGHTMARE for the rest of us.
Now that they have control of the White House and both houses of Congress, the liberals who run most of the newspapers here SHOULD be on a beach somewhere throwing a huge party. Instead, they are dusting off their resumes. The Editor of the AJC informed us that she was actively seeking to get more conservative/traditional values writers in the pages down there. I’d submit that it’s too little, too late!
Perhaps she’ll write and let us know if that “Hope” and “Change We Can Believe In” thing helps with the job search.
If you just have to have one of those 1,000 new jobs dunning folks for Tim Geithner’s IRS, it couldn’t hurt.
Exactly. The writers act they are all so much smarter than us “dumb plebian hick conservatives” so why should any of us waste their time and money on them? They’re the “intelligent” ones but they never figure out that a good way to stay in business is not to alienate half your potential customers.
You hit the nail on the head. And to make matters worse, companies aren’t even putting coupons in the papers anymore. With readership declining, they are spending advertising dollars on their biggest bang for the buck.
The young of today are use to 30-second segments in their lives (TV commercials being a great example). Anything beyond that and they lose interest. To read a newspaper takes time and concentration, something our youth don’t have the patients for.
And:
If you lean to the left, you already know what the newspaper is going to say.
If you lean to the right, you already know what the newspaper is going to say.
Why bother.
Any of us here can make the Globe profitable in a year. It’s a simple business model.
>To read a newspaper takes time and concentration, something our youth don’t have the patients for.
I guess they shouldn’t try to read a book... and judging by the language, or rather lack thereof, in text-messaging that’s a good thing.
ping
“Why big city newspapers are dying”
Cause they suck.
“This is a massive social problem. We are losing the majority of the new generation. They will not achieve anything close to their potential because of poor reading.”
Hey, here’s an idea, how about they read books? There aren’t many Menckens running around news offices these days, let alone Shakespeares.
DITTO
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