Old dudes facing a changing newspaper world

Knoxville News Sentinel ^ | 4/17/5 | JACK McELROY

[TheForceOfOne]

*Grin*

It was late, what I meant to say was:

Hello, NY Slimes,
I would like to cancel my subscription. I was under the impression your paper was Horse porn because everyone keeps referring to it as the perfect picture of a horses a$$. lol

[lawgirl]

To me, there is nothing they can do. I have not picked up a newspaper in about 5 years, and I don't intend on ever picking one up again. Why pay for news that I already read about on Free Republic 3 days ago?

FWIW, I am 30.

[qam1]

Xer Ping

Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.

Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.  

[LibertyRocks]

The only reason I buy a paper anymore is for the coupons and sales ads! And then, it's only on Sunday! I get all my news on the 'net (and much better quality I might add.) Newspaper "reporters and journalists" pretty much make me sick nowadays with the way they "report".

[LibertyRocks]

"Meanwhile the words of the paper consist of high-school level writing, wire copy that doesn't even know how outrageously biased it is, snotty leftist columnists snorting away, 1A "analysis" pieces trying to lie, spin and shape perceptions."

Thanks for the "inside scoop"! I'm glad it's not just my imagination regarding the the bias and low writing standards. (I'm actually kind of glad now that I didn't go into journalism as I had intended many years ago, it sounds like I would have been miserable!)

[LibertyRocks]

Strike the second "the" before bias please! (o;

[schu]

I thought I heard Rush say the other day that the WSJ nows generates more profits from their on-line version than their paper version (content is one and the same). I bought the WSJ everyday for 20 years, 2 years ago I canceled my hard copy version, the on-line is cheaper and I do not miss a thing.

Newspapers could revive themselves if they started to do true investigative journalism. A great example is the WAS State Govs election. If they dug in and uncovered the story, they would sell out every day IMHO.

[TXBSAFH]

I have no use for the dead tree legacy media. Other then shipping material, that is.

[LibertarianInExile]

Bump to that. If I could get the funnies to load on my ipaq without payin' for them, I'd never buy a paper again.

[ken21]

when i was a kid there was a morning paper and an afternoon paper in most cities of any size. the former was union, the latter the "bankers'" paper.

no one expected the truth in either, but the truth might be guessed at by reading both and triangulating the issues.

then, in the last several decades corporations bought out the vast majority of american newspapers.

they turned their editorial pages over to college-educated liberals and feminists.

the more control that these corporations gained, the more newspapers became less trusted and lost circulation.

newspapers have only themselves to blame. as feminists feminized newspapers with more home decor, diet, medical fads, ad infintum--all at the expense of hard news,

these papers lost circulation.

[lawgirl]

Have you been to comics.com? that is where i get my daily fix of Get Fuzzy. There are tons of cartoons published there every day.

[secretagent]

Newspapers have better pixel density, for now.

[LibertarianInExile]

I know, but you can only get one at a time. It's too slow.

I highly recommend the Houston Chronicle's build-your-own page. But it's slow, too, and it doesn't have every comic I'd like, as comics.com and ucomics.com have some but not all of my favorites. I wish I could get them all at once.

Anyway, check it out at http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/comics/archive/byocp.mpl.

[AD from SpringBay]

The deepening shade continued to rise from the impact crater. Tremors were felt for miles. A nearby herd of daileditiors ran, fully aware they must stay ahead of the darkening shadows that grew quickly behind them. Off cliffsides and into marshes, through unknown thickets and into closed arroyos, the fear blinded beasts knew their survival was in question. Their round bellies ached. Swollen by years of lazy grazing they had long since forgotten how to fend for themselves and knew only the gentle slopes and sweet local grass. Thier small minds could not comprehend exactly what was happening, but the meteor I-ternetius reminded them of just how fragile their docility had become.

[tnlibertarian]

Since this article came from the paper that ends up in my box (or driveway, yard, bushes, neighbor’s breakfast table, etc.) everyday, I would like to offer Jack a suggestion which I will include in an email later. The paper recently ran a big comics promotion which invited people to vote on which comics stayed, which went, and which were added. It was a ‘Love It’ or ‘Hate It’ format. I suggest that Mr. McElroy do the same thing with his local columnists. The paper recently added a new Conservative columnist, who was found through a several month long process of locals writing columns and people expressing their opinion. I suppose this addition was in response to three or four local liberal columnists, who are of course referred to simply as ‘columnists’. I think ole Jack may be surprised to find out that in a conservative East Tennessee burg that people might not like the crap put forth from some of their featured writers. In particular, Don Williams was apparently infected with some sort of DU bug in the run-up to the election. He would soak in and repeat any whacked-out, left-wing rumor regardless of plausibility as fact and another obvious reason to not only not vote for W, but lock him away in some dark dungeon. The guy made Molly Ivins seam calm and reasoned.

That being said, about the only thing I read in the paper anymore is the sports page, classified, comics and puzzles.

[StoneColdGOP]

BTTT.

[Purple GOPer]

I think if newspapers did two things they would still be able to survive and thrive:

1) Admit they are not impartial and fine tune the "bias" to be closer to the local community. Yes NY & LA papers might get more slightly more liberal, but I don't think so. Media should would the 70/30 issues the same way politicians do.

2) Report actual news. I know it might be hard to do, but the paper should to be more than political and business press releases.

[GOP_1900AD]

Demographics 101. As the 70% left leaning (as a class) Baby Boomers entered the market during the period 1965 - 1985, the big city papers pandered to them. From 1985 - 1995 in particular, they moved further and further to the left, and away from mainstream America. Now, as the younger generations than the Boomers take over, not only are we less paper oriented and more on line oriented than the Boomers, but also, we are more conservative. The big city papers missed the boat by ignoring the younger generations and overly focussing on the boomers. And they are not the first. Most large commercial orgs overly focus on the Loudest Generation.

[qam1]

The big city papers missed the boat by ignoring the younger generations and overly focussing on the boomers.

And they still are

See (Chicago) Tribune to target baby boomer niche

"The Chicago Tribune is going after another niche market with a new magazine aimed at baby boomers......

ummm aren't the Baby Boomers already buying papers, so if they were smart businessmen wouldn't they be going after a different niche to increase circulation??

But I guess to a Baby Boomer, they are the center of the universe and there are no other niches

[GOP_1900AD]

Fascinating ...