WWTBAM Bored

Today's is the last one. 146 years old. Officially joining the Rocky Mountain News.

We are now a 1 newspaper town.

Not exactly...they're going to internet only...different but not yet dead...

I've been reading the comics there off and on for a couple years. Maybe I still can.

SportsFan68 wrote:I've been reading the comics there off and on for a couple years. Maybe I still can.

That's where I've been getting my Funky Winkerbean fix ever since wintergreen turned me back on to that strip. --Bob

One by one, the liberal-slanted papers will go belly up - same as the liberal-slanted radio stations. Folks are getting fed up with that sort of "reporting". The NY Times is next unless they can find another rich Mexican to prop them up. People want to read the news - all of it. Not just the selected articles that meet the papers' agenda. So, if they are dissatisfied with what the particular paper is presenting, they are not going to read it. Simple as that.

Sir_Galahad wrote:One by one, the liberal-slanted papers will go belly up - same as the liberal-slanted radio stations. Folks are getting fed up with that sort of "reporting". The NY Times is next unless they can find another rich Mexican to prop them up. People want to read the news - all of it. Not just the selected articles that meet the papers' agenda. So, if they are dissatisfied with what the particular paper is presenting, they are not going to read it. Simple as that.

It's the newspaper business in general that is at stake here, Sir_G, not "liberal-slanted papers". The local newspaper gets excoriated by conservatives for being just another liberal rag, yet it goes out of its way to print op-ed pieces by such people as George Will and Cal Thomas. At the same time liberals protest that the paper is too conservative even though it has op-ed pieces from David Broder and Ellen Goodman. Bias, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. The truth is that people get their news from other sources, many of which are free, undercutting the revenues that newspapers need to function.

Sir_Galahad wrote:One by one, the liberal-slanted papers will go belly up - same as the liberal-slanted radio stations. Folks are getting fed up with that sort of "reporting". The NY Times is next unless they can find another rich Mexican to prop them up. People want to read the news - all of it. Not just the selected articles that meet the papers' agenda. So, if they are dissatisfied with what the particular paper is presenting, they are not going to read it. Simple as that.

Historically, that does not really seem to be true. In most instances where newspaper towns have shrunk from three to two and then to one, it has been the more conservative paper that has gone away. I was in Baltimore when the (conservative Hearst) News American (or whatever it was called) lost out to the very liberal Sunpapers (and even there, the slightly less liberal Evening Sun later folded into the slightly more liberal Sun); the very conservative Washington Daily News folded into the conservative Evening Star, which later went out of business, leaving the very liberal Washington Post. In Richmond, the extremely conservative News Record (or whatever it was) succumbed to the slightly more moderate Times Dispatch. In Dallas-Forth Worth, the very conservative paper (I forget their name) fell as well. I think that the same has been true elsewhere. In most of these instances, it is a happenstance that the more conservative, unsuccessful paper(s) in just about every instance happened to be afternoon papers, and the more liberal, surviving paper(s) in just about every instance happened to be the morning paper(s), which is a different dynamic, but by and large I don't think that liberal ideology has really been a weakening factor in the demise of newspapers, at least, no more so than a conservative ideology has been. Newspapers of all ideologies are having trouble surviving.

What about the people who will never own a computer? When they're gone, will newspaper go also?

SportsFan68 wrote:What about the people who will never own a computer? When they're gone, will newspaper go also?

I have no idea. Personally I prefer a hardcopy newspaper because I can travel with it. Yes, I know about iPhones and all that stuff, but there's nothing more satisfying than working a good old-fashioned paper crossword puzzle.

earendel wrote:

Sir_Galahad wrote:One by one, the liberal-slanted papers will go belly up - same as the liberal-slanted radio stations. Folks are getting fed up with that sort of "reporting". The NY Times is next unless they can find another rich Mexican to prop them up. People want to read the news - all of it. Not just the selected articles that meet the papers' agenda. So, if they are dissatisfied with what the particular paper is presenting, they are not going to read it. Simple as that.

It's the newspaper business in general that is at stake here, Sir_G, not "liberal-slanted papers". The local newspaper gets excoriated by conservatives for being just another liberal rag, yet it goes out of its way to print op-ed pieces by such people as George Will and Cal Thomas. At the same time liberals protest that the paper is too conservative even though it has op-ed pieces from David Broder and Ellen Goodman. Bias, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. The truth is that people get their news from other sources, many of which are free, undercutting the revenues that newspapers need to function.

Most of the complaints I hear about newspapers do not relate to the balance of their op-ed page or their editorials. The complaints are about biased reporting in the portion of the paper that are supposed to be news and not opinion.

wintergreen48 wrote:

Sir_Galahad wrote:One by one, the liberal-slanted papers will go belly up - same as the liberal-slanted radio stations. Folks are getting fed up with that sort of "reporting". The NY Times is next unless they can find another rich Mexican to prop them up. People want to read the news - all of it. Not just the selected articles that meet the papers' agenda. So, if they are dissatisfied with what the particular paper is presenting, they are not going to read it. Simple as that.

Historically, that does not really seem to be true. In most instances where newspaper towns have shrunk from three to two and then to one, it has been the more conservative paper that has gone away. I was in Baltimore when the (conservative Hearst) News American (or whatever it was called) lost out to the very liberal Sunpapers (and even there, the slightly less liberal Evening Sun later folded into the slightly more liberal Sun); the very conservative Washington Daily News folded into the conservative Evening Star, which later went out of business, leaving the very liberal Washington Post. In Richmond, the extremely conservative News Record (or whatever it was) succumbed to the slightly more moderate Times Dispatch. In Dallas-Forth Worth, the very conservative paper (I forget their name) fell as well. I think that the same has been true elsewhere. In most of these instances, it is a happenstance that the more conservative, unsuccessful paper(s) in just about every instance happened to be afternoon papers, and the more liberal, surviving paper(s) in just about every instance happened to be the morning paper(s), which is a different dynamic, but by and large I don't think that liberal ideology has really been a weakening factor in the demise of newspapers, at least, no more so than a conservative ideology has been. Newspapers of all ideologies are having trouble surviving.

I'm not sure Dallas is a good example of your point. I never thought the Times-Herald was more conservative than the Morning News. The DTH was the newspaper we read in our house, and I never thought either paper was particularly more conservative or liberal than the other.

The Times Herald had the better sports page. It had Blackie Sherrod and Randy Galloway.

From Wikipedia:

"As an afternoon publication for most of its 103 years, [the Times Herald's] demise was hastened by the shift of newspaper reading habits to morning papers, the reliance on television for late-breaking news, as well as the loss of an antitrust lawsuit against crosstown rival The Dallas Morning News.

On December 8, 1991, Belo, owner of The Dallas Morning News, bought the Times Herald for $55 million and closed the paper the next day."

earendel wrote:

SportsFan68 wrote:What about the people who will never own a computer? When they're gone, will newspaper go also?

I have no idea. Personally I prefer a hardcopy newspaper because I can travel with it. Yes, I know about iPhones and all that stuff, but there's nothing more satisfying than working a good old-fashioned paper crossword puzzle.

Yep. First Jumble, then Sudoku, then the Crossword. Little pieces of joy that brighten a day and that will quickly be lost if newspapers fail.

SportsFan68 wrote:

earendel wrote:

SportsFan68 wrote:What about the people who will never own a computer? When they're gone, will newspaper go also?

I have no idea. Personally I prefer a hardcopy newspaper because I can travel with it. Yes, I know about iPhones and all that stuff, but there's nothing more satisfying than working a good old-fashioned paper crossword puzzle.

Yep. First Jumble, then Sudoku, then the Crossword. Little pieces of joy that brighten a day and that will quickly be lost if newspapers fail.

I gotchyer Jumble right here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/ ... 3.htmlpage

ulysses5019 wrote:

SportsFan68 wrote:

earendel wrote: I have no idea. Personally I prefer a hardcopy newspaper because I can travel with it. Yes, I know about iPhones and all that stuff, but there's nothing more satisfying than working a good old-fashioned paper crossword puzzle.

Yep. First Jumble, then Sudoku, then the Crossword. Little pieces of joy that brighten a day and that will quickly be lost if newspapers fail.

I gotchyer Jumble right here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/ ... 3.htmlpage

OK, that works. Thanks!