Posted on 10/19/2009 6:21:54 AM PDT by La Lydia
Says it all.
problem: the internet does not get news, reporters do. And reporters must be paid or they go find new jobs doing something else.
to pick a paper, The internet allows me to read the reporting and opion pieces of the Boston Globe about national figures from Mass. and about the local impact of national issues. My reading Boston Globe online, second hand means they get no ad revenue from me. If the Globe goes under, then I don’t get to read for free anymore.
It seems to me we need the newspapers to improve the quality of thier reporting, not die.
All of the author’s argument can be boiled down to: we are failing in the free enterprise system and we want a government bailout!
“... Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.”
I can’t help being cynical here. So THAT’s why families and education are constantly being weakened: So the people can’t read.
That along with neutering the free press ...
TJ must be rolling in his grave.
A couple of twenty something young people went to a few Acorn offices and gathered and reported more news than the Boston Globe has in years. Most of what newspapers "report" today is spoon fed to them by some party, agency, governmental official, special interest group, etc. In other words, they stopped reporting the news a long time ago and that is the principle for their impending failure.
To say that a healthy free enterprise system won't create a different model for gathering and delivering news is like saying Americans will stop driving cars if GM and Chrysler go under.
a new model? does she have red hair?
“American society must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reportings.”
We do, have you noticed no one is watching the MSM news any longer except empty seats in airports.
Many of the good reporters leave and go into PR or some other field where they actually make a living wage.
I make enough to survive as a reporter (since my wife also works), but not enough to really have much of a savings account.
There is an opportunity I think for good journalists to put together online ventures and get rid of the problem of all the expense running a printing press and massive staff.
But, it’s not easy. I have tried to think of a way to go do it, and I haven’t come up with anything that would be really doable to even start on a reporter’s salary.
It’s sad because journalism is critical to this country and to every community, and I think newspapers are only going to get worse as they have to cut staff as advertising revenues continue to decline.
Online is the future, but how we get there....nobody knows.
Putting it frankly, blogs can’t cut it and many small online ventures only have one reporter. That’s just not enough to do a good job.
Len, Mike...consider for a moment the Machiavellian possibilities of reporting the facts without fear, favor or affection, the way you’re supposed to.
The place of “citizen donors” used to be taken up by “investors.” For a couple of hundred years, newspapers were owned by individuals and families who made a decent living from them. These people and families had a vested interest in serving the communities THEY lived in with real, accurate, information. I’m not saying they were always balanced, but they at least attempted to be. Then there came a time when they were bought up wholesale by large corporations, such as Gannett, McClatchy, etc., the managers of which began to see themselves as “players” on the national political scene. At the same time, they allowed their reporters to write editorials in the place there were supposed to be news stories. These corporations drove them into the ground. To this day, there are profitable, hometown newspapers being operated.
Bookmark ping for later.
Excellent points - I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way. The historical time line seems pretty accurate.
People and reporters who are local have a vested interest in the health and welfare of that locality, unless they’ve been financially comproprised by some outside influence.
That same reasoning can be extrapolated to multi-national corporations in general as well. The obvious question being, do they care about particular local populations health and welfare? They virtually have no country and imho, it appears a lot of them have kissed the US goodbye, despite the rhetoric to the contrary.
Of course, other elements have come into play that have not helped newspapers. Stiff competition from other kinds of advertising, the fact that the public schools no longer turn out truly literate readers (also, the public schools churn out millions of kids with short attention spans), and finally the devastation of our national paper manufacturing industry. The environmental movement ran it into the ground. There are only one or two remaining paper mills producing newsprint in our entire country, there is no competition or large-scale capability, so it is expensive, and most of it has to be imported. That is one of the reasons newspapers are getting smaller and smaller.
I doubt very much that Jefferson would be in favor of FEDERAL control of education, and probably not even of STATE control. I do believe he'd be opposed to his children being forcibly indoctrinated with ideas that he opposes.
I think there was (and still is) a lot of unanimity around the idea that children should be taught to read, to write clearly, to think clearly and to have a solid foundation in facts. I don't think Jefferson would at all been in favor of mandatory public education where they taught the divine right of kings back then, nor of the rights to other folks property and labor being taught now.
>>I do believe he’d be opposed to his children
>>being forcibly indoctrinated with ideas that he opposes.
“I swear upon the altar of God, eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
Yep.
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