The American Mind

I guess I’m old school. Somehow, it doesn’t feel right to not have a newspaper with my morning coffee.

Maybe it will end up that we’ll all have a wireless “Kindle” type of device to dial up what we want to read for our “newspapers”.

Until newspapers re-emerge as “NEWS Papers” not propaganda sheets for a political party or worse,”the daily lie” put forward by the ruling party, they will fail.
Ownership of papers should be local, never foreign or by big corporations. Ethics might make a come back.

It will be interesting seeing how the transmission of news changes over the next few years.

Agreed blogs can’t fill the vacuum but I think you’ll see more local blog/news sites pop up and integrate heavily with social networks used by people in the area.

>>>Right before our eyes the newspaper business undergoes meltdown.

Naw. It’s been going on for quite some time now, more like the slow disappearance of a snowman over the month of April.

Two things have smacked print news over the last two decades: the explosion of the internet and cable/satellite TV. Both caused a continual decline in subscriptions and rapid decline in advertising.

Here’s the thing about print news: it does nothing unique, and it does it slower than any other medium. Indeed, much of the content is just regurgitation of other news outlets (wire services and other newspapers).

By the time the paperboy drops the rag at your door you have probably heard/seen/know about 75-95% of it’s content, gleaned from 2,3,4 other sources. And you probably know it in greater detail than what shows up on your doorstep johnny-come-lately. (I am constantly amused to find two/three/four day-old stories popping up in the MKE Urinal-Sentinel. Which begs the question; why am I paying for this?)

And we cannot dismiss the utter left-wing bias that that has permeated so-called “journalism” over the last 30+years and the growing injection of opinion over fact in “news” articles.

So, on one hand you have multi-faceted up-to-the-second news/sports/weather 24/7 and better (read: visual and interactive) and more versatile means of advertising, much of it free. And YOU get to choose the news you use.

On the other hand you have a plodding dinosaur carrying mostly stagnant information along with making you pay for the “Food/Style” section and/or advertising that you neither want nor need.

Easy choice, no?

Like Asian Badger above, I too would miss even Urinal-Sentinel if it dies. I would rather read than watch (is anyone as sick of Billy Mays as I am?) and who doesn’t like a lazy Sunday morning, with all the sound off, bean brew in hand, flipping through the printed page?

I don’t know what the solution might be to save print media. I might suggest that they focus on detailed local/regional coverage and let the 24/7 coast-centric newsies handle all the national stuff. But the advent of broadcast digital TV is going to mean local toob stations branching out on sub channels with their own 24/7 bubble heads (as TMJ does now with weather).

But saved I hope occurs. I really don’t wanna hafta carry around a five pound block of techno-screen just to read the comics.

I think the papers can stop the losses if they produce articles that present both sides of issues. The local/state angle would also work well. I’d like to see them provide pols the option to explain why they voted a certain way, rather than just the votes.