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 ...
Study done in 2006 on US adults:
“52% could look at a heating bill and figure out that a five-cent-per gallon deduction on a purchase of 140 gallons of oil would yield $7. “
http://www.efmoody.com/miscellaneous/illiteracy.html
Several reasons:
1. Everyone who wants to read reads for free on the internet.
2. Libs don’t need it as it’s just preaching to the choir.
3. Conservatives won’t pay to read the libs’ BS and complaining about evil conservatives.
4. The housebird population is not increasing.
Hmm, let me take a crack at this...
Could it be because they no longer provide a service people are willing to pay for?
Could it be because the public (in general) is in various stages of waking up to the obvious bias in most papers so-called "news?"
Could it be that the public no-longer trusts the papers to give them the news rather than propaganda?
Could it be that most MSM "journalists" are held in lower regard than politicians, used car salesmen, and lawyers?
In short, papers are dying because they have walked, nay ran, away from what the people want.
“Then why is the internet flourishing? Even with YouTube and the rest, it’s still mainly a written medium.”
Half the population in cities like NY, Philadelphia, and LA are on public assistance. They don’t use the internet either... The fact is that they are functionally illiterate and or don’t read English.
These people watch TV.
“Easy... a majority of the population can not read.”
In addition to that, when you pay a check and try to avoid pennies, young clerks have zero clue what to do. They nearly always screw it up. I gave a guy a $20 bill and two pennies to pay for an iced tea - cost $2.02. He was struck dumb. I told him to give me $18; he had to use the cash register to verify that $18 was the right change.
Easy, stale, biased news :(
Its kind of ironic that all the libtards that would buy these papers dont want to buy papers because they want to save trees. The liberal newspapers killed themselves.
I was born and raised in the Boston area. I remember when the Boston Herald, the Boston Traveller, the Globe and the Record-American were separate papers (the Record-American was probably the result of a merger, I bet). The Herald was a morning paper and the Traveller was an afternoon paper. Dad brought them both home and I’d read both.
“breakfast is coffee and a newspaper...”
We are a dying breed, friend. I get up at 5:00 AM Sunday, brew a pot of Maxwell House and fire up my pipe. Grab the Arkansas Democrat Gazette and read the paper in my garage. Sitting there with my pipe full of Prince Albert, a big mug of black, steaming coffee and the feel of the Ark. DG in my hands, I feel completely satisfied. My family is still asleep, I am alone in the morning stillness with only my thoughts - and it occurs to me: Although I have only a modest home in a subdivision, and neither fame nor fortune, right now I am completely satisfied. God has truly Blessed me, we should all feel so rich. And to think a simple pipe, cup of coffee and a newspaper has put me in such a mood.—JM
“Easy... a majority of the population can not read.”
Well, not exactly...their target audience can’t read. It’s all a case of bad product planning.
Cuz they suck!
Excellent description. Enjoyed your words, JM
That sounds downright cozy.
Swap the Maxwell House for Yuban and the Arkansas Democrat Gazette for the Los Angeles Times, and it's a deal.
I’m going to take a wild stab at it and guess it’s because people are sick of the journalistic crap they print, and have migrated to other sources of news information.
I don’t care why the big city Democrat newspapers are dying.
I just want them to hurry up and be dead, and I want everybody associated with them to lose their jobs, their homes, and their families. For the damage they have done to America they deserve nothing less. (spit)
LOL, sure, if you don't mind the smell of homeless people in raincoats who surf the net for porn on the library's computers and then look for kids to molest. Librarians actually fight for these rights.
Libraries are an obscene waste of tax dollars.
As soon as I read your entire post, I knew that I agreed with it.
I simply never thought it through before. Really.
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