Liberal bias isn't killing newspapers

Boston Globe ^ | May 6, 2009 | Jeff Jacoby

[MartinaMisc]

'I SURE HOPE you'll be out of a job soon," e-mails a friend, alluding to The Boston Globe's current excruciations. He really is a friend - he has shown me and my family much warmth and kindness over the years - and should I find myself without a job, I'm sure he would want to help in any way he could. But such is his antipathy to the Globe that he regards my potential unemployment as a price well worth paying for what he calls the "greater good" of the newspaper's demise.

My friend is a conservative, and he is not alone in his views. To many on the right, the increasingly dire straits in which newspapers find themselves are something to cheer, or at any rate nothing to regret. The industry, they believe, is merely reaping in falling revenues and fleeing subscribers what it sowed in left-wing bias and unbalanced news coverage.

"Good riddance to bad trash," crows one conservative blogger, linking gleefully to Warren Buffett's forecast of "nearly unending losses" for US newspapers. "Good Riddance" is likewise James Srodes's message in the American Spectator, where he begins a column by "letting loose a small raspberry at the flood of hand-wringing going on over The Decline of the American Daily Newspaper." His disdain is echoed by readers, one of whom snorts: "Their pages are full of liberal tripe, lies about science and misbegotten theories of life. It's a wonder they sell any papers at all."

[Dragonspirit]

It’s a dual front of technological alternatives AND liberal bias. No tears will be shed as the paper goes the way of the dinosaur.

As to the future, it is time that Republicans claim dominance in this new arena. It is our best hope, we can break the monopoly the liberals have held for so long if only our leaders will claim it. We control radio, we have Fox, and now we need to take more of the internet.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

Liberal bias is most definitely a big contributor Jeff. There may be a lot of people visiting newspaper sites online, but it these were ‘paying’ customers you would be able to save these papers by selling online access. People who work hard and have money to spend tend to be more conservative, in general. Losing those readers has a big economic impact, even if you replace them numerically with people who are liberal but who don't bring the same purchasing power to bear.

If your argument is valid, then how do you explain the inability of liberal talk radio to compete with conservative talk radio? How do you explain the success of Fox vs. CNN and the other liberal cable news outlets? Many newspapers have turned themselves into the print equivalent of “Air America”, with the same economic consequences.

[South40]

Liberal bias isn't killing newspapers

It's exactly the reason why I canceled the subscription to mine.

[Gator113]

Boston Globe’s death rattle.

I will not miss them.

[Lancey Howard]

Jeff Jacoby is essentially correct, although I would maintain that the newspaper industry’s vapid liberal Democrat agenda was at least a factor in hastening its decline. But who cares? It’s results that matter, and as long as the Democrat newspapers die, it doesn’t matter what the reasons are. America wins.

I want everybody associated with the Democrat newsrooms to lose their jobs, their homes, and their families. For what they have done to America they deserve nothing less. (spit)

(I do trust that good writers like Jeff can recover by writing books and finding internet sponsors for their columns.)

[Bullish]

Liberal bias isn't killing newspapers

No, it's already killed them and is busily throwing the dirt over the graves.

[libs_kma]

"Liberal bias isn't killing newspapers

It's exactly the reason why I canceled the subscription to mine."

You and I both South40

[Zakeet]

Liberal bias isn't killing newspapers

Jacoby, haven't you noticed that:

• Fox News is rapidly growing and now draws more viewers than the rest of cable news combined, while liberal programming is dropping at the rate of 5-10 percent per year

• Rush Limbaugh has trebled his listening audience in the past six months and the rest of conservative talk radio is booming, while Err America quickly went bust and the rest of radio is suffering

• Conservative newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and Investors Business Daily are profitable growing, while dozens of liberal MSM rags are either in or are near bankruptcy because of dropping ad sales, subscribers and readers

Do you really think this is just an amazing coincidence, you simple ass?

[carcraft]

My paper is fairly conservative but the paper publishes a lot of liberal columns and poorly written news articles from liberal sources. People actually believe this drivel because it is in the papers!

[count-your-change]

Another autopsy of a dead horse. p.s., it wasn’t the beating by the internet that killed it.

[muir_redwoods]

If it’s a sea change in technology and not liberal bias that explains the Globe’s and the NYT’s problem, how does Jacoby explain the success of the WSJ?

[rhombus]

The success of the WSJ is NOT because of the conservative editorial pages. The news itself has been found to be just as liberal as the rest of them.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx

WSJ readers are a completely different demographic than the NY Times, the Boston Globe, etc. I would suspect that many of their subscriptions are paid as business expenses rather than individual households. Newspapers are going down because they are "buggy whips". By the time anyone receives a newspaper these days, they probably already know the news via television, Internet, etc.

[Past Your Eyes]

The Glob cannot go away quick enough to suit me.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I miss the Globe, but it’s been dead to me for decades. I also really miss the New York Times, same deal. If not for the internet, I would be reading the Boston Herald right this minute, so Jeff is probably right.

[markomalley]

Liberal bias, on the editorial page, is not a cause.

Liberal bias, when it gets translated onto the "hard news" pages, is the main reason.

One other reason: when reporters do most of their reporting using the "journalism by press release" technique, I stop paying much attention to those journalists.

[Aquabird]

This article explains why newspapers are dying but not in the way the author wants.

Newspapers do not see themselves as a business that cater to customers. When customers complain, they just say ‘screw you’ and keep doing whatever they want.

Many of the customers complaining are saying ‘liberal bias’. Whether they are right or wrong is not the issue, the issue is that the customers are unhappy with the paper. So they stop buying.

The author of this piece doesn’t even see anyone complaining as ‘customers’. The true reason why newspapers are failing is because newspapers thought they were in the newspaper business when, in fact, they are in the news and content business.

The argument that the ‘times have changed’ and ‘the internet’ and ‘young generation’ altered everything is just plain wrong. The railroads were destroyed not because of automobiles and airplanes but because railroads saw themselves in the railroad business, not in the transportation business. Western Union, who was the big telegram company, passed on Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone since they saw themselves in the telegram business.

You have to admire the narcissism of these newspaper people. Are they ever at fault, ever? Even with their business crumbling, are they at all wrong? Nope.

There are some newspapers that are growing in number. But, shhh, don’t tell the author this. The reason why these newspapers are growing is because they fit the customers’ needs (like being a paper for the subway), have content they cannot get anywhere else, and generally seek to satisfy the customer.

[sausageseller]

"Liberal bias isn't killing newspapers It's exactly the reason why I canceled the subscription to mine." You and I both South40

Me too!

WSJ is the only paper I will pick up.

[ALPAPilot]

That’s is exactly why I don’t buy any newspapers. But, I would giver three causes:

1. Liberal Bias

2. Internet

3. Crappy reporting and writing. Many articles would earn less than a B for an eighth grader.

[Neidermeyer]

Write the lefty idiot at jacoby@globe.com