By prose

May 12, 2009 4:17 PM | Link to this

Irishguy. A couple of questions. Knowing you’d never exagerate, just how DO teenage girls act at a boy band concert? I’m curious, when exactly was, “way back when”? I seem to remember a fairly strong love affair with Ronald Reagan and the press. Was it before or after that. Having watched a few Bush speeches, do you think the press or anyone else took much pleasure in listening to the President of the United States sound like a gaff machine? I cringed more than a few times. Lupica still does sports? Well, unless he was covering sumo wrestling or the brain damage caused by too many years in the ring, I can’t see why he’d mention Rush. Did it have something to do with the race car driver suspended for positive drug testing? I seem to remember Democrats taking a pretty good beating by the press over the years. Cash stashed in freezers, sexual escapades with an intern, a candidate who cheated on his cancer stricken wife and so on. I think Alice made some pretty good points. If the press really had it in for the Repubicans all they’d need to do is keep re-printing the transcript of Cheney on Face the Nation last Sunday.

By irishguy

May 12, 2009 11:20 AM | Link to this

DS, Alice, there’s been liberal media bias since most of the press became liberals way back when. Notice how Dems in any type of trouble/scandal are rarely if ever ID’d as such. When it’s a Republican the (R) is proudly displayed right after the name. Did you notice that the Press was acting like teenage girls at a boy band concert for Mr Obama at the Press club Dinner last Saturday. They were NEVER that happy to hear Mr Bush speak at that event. As for the sports pages, Mike Lupica was taking shots at Rush Limbaugh in his last column.

By Alice

May 11, 2009 12:42 PM | Link to this

Downsized: they need a scapegoat, but only when elections aren’t going for conservatives. When we had a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Congress, you didn’t hear all that whining about the liberal media because from 2000 to at least 2005, the liberal media didn’t have the influence to brainwash their readers, as opposed to the magical powers they have now over the whole country. Apparently, American minds are only vulnerable to communist propaganda in very short spurts of time, just long enough to elect a socialist - in 1976, in 1992 and most recently in 2008. Scientists should really look more closely at this - maybe there’s an astrological connection.

By downsized

May 8, 2009 2:17 PM | Link to this

Raoul, you’re telling us the sports pages have been taken over by the liberals and are using it to bash conservatives?! You’d have loved the Joe McCarthy era. You’re all guilty until proven innocent. Where do you get this crap?

By Page Turner

May 8, 2009 9:52 AM | Link to this

I trust the print version of DDN has a more readable layout than this blog page has of late. Am I the only one who thinks it has become a jumbled mess?

By Raoul

May 8, 2009 9:15 AM | Link to this

You all make great points. But most towns only have one paper, and whatever the bias found in that paper is too influential. Too many papers are in the tank for the Democrat party, and it isn’t just in the editorials. There are snipes against conservatives from just about every columnist in the DDN except maybe Dale Huffman, including the sports section. But that’s OK, because we can sound off in the blogs. Political bickering in newspapers is a time-honored tradition. Just look at any old newspapers from the Civil War era, and look at how Lincoln was demonized, belittled, made fun of, etc. Having said all that, it sure would be nice to have a balanced newspaper that did not hide the truths they don’t like, and didn’t spin the stories to make political hay.

By Blowfly

May 7, 2009 2:51 PM | Link to this

I think we need to have a wide range of newspapers survive. What papers are really good at is keeping government honest, especially local governments. That means sending reporters to the school board, zoning board, parks commission meetings. To do that you need a local paper in every town with enough money to do the grunt work. Just knowing that someone is going write an article if you do something stupid is enough to stop a lot of stupid ideas dead in the tracks. Blogging can help fulfill that role, but if you think reporting is biased then try blogging. Argh! My pet peeve about alleged newspaper bias is when people cite to a paper’s editorial record as a sign of bias. The editorials are suppose to be biased! That’s why they call it the Opinion section. That does not mean that the reporting is biased.

By Steve

May 7, 2009 9:41 AM | Link to this

People keep using the WSJ as the example for charging for online news, yet don’t seem to realize that the WSJ is a different type of paper. Most of it’s stuff is financial information that other papers just don’t cover the same way. Charging for online access to what is mostly wire stories(such as the case with many newspapers) isn’t going to cut it. The original content making the paper worth charging for online simply doesn’t exist. Blaming Google for “stealing” news is ridiculous, if anything it brings people to various news websites that they wouldn’t have found otherwise. I myself now frequent a few different sites that i’ve discovered via Google news on a daily basis. Google is not the enemy here, lack of original content is.

By vick

May 7, 2009 12:56 AM | Link to this

TRS. My dad was a US Marine. 2nd Division. Saipan. Tinian. One of the first ones in Nagasaki after the great unpleasantness. My mother followed the war closely. She kept scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings. I still have them. I was looking at them recently and was amazed at how they are so unified in their themes. Patriotic. Fully supportive of that war to defeat the great evil of Germany and Japan. One could say that it was almost 100% taking that one side. Ours. So what is our side, really? Granted, we don’t seem to have that big point of agreement at the moment. We did again briefly after 9/11. I would wager that an objective look back at American newspapers since the days of the 13 colonies would show many viewpoints. Some would be convergent. Others divergent. There would be many periods of patriotic fervor, some inspired by newspapers. Remember the Maine? My point is that freedom of the press is a wonderful thing. We may not always agree with what the presses are printing but thank heaven they still are…

By TRS

May 7, 2009 12:04 AM | Link to this

Vick - point taken; but, has the imbalance always been so great? Or so blatant? There was a time you could disagree with the NYT editorials but their reporting was still creditable. Not so now.

By vick

May 6, 2009 8:31 PM | Link to this

TRS, newspapers did not become biased overnight. Newspapers have always reflected the viewpoints of those who created them. Go back through history and you’ll find the points of view reflected in newspapers were always influenced in one way or another. That’s why so many small town newspapers back in the day were named after political parties. Look it up. There were many papers called The Republican or The Democrat. That is merely the result of the power that has always resided in those presses. Show me one newspaper that has no bias. You can’t. No such animal exists.

By TRS

May 6, 2009 8:12 PM | Link to this

Vic - I absolutely agree newspapers in some form or fashion are needed. I also agree that the internet has altered its business model greatly. Based on the recent change in the blogs (which I like) we see the newspaper business trying to scamble to find its place. As much fun as it is to agree, I have to respectfully disagree with Alice. A Zogby poll a few years back found that 83% believe there is a bias. Of those 68% believed the bias was left leaning and 28% right leaning. Whether one believes that to be a reality or not is not relevant. Perception is reality and the perception of many is that significant bias exists, one which goes beyond “inaccuracies” and gives the impression of seeking to influence in one direction or another. I don’t discount sensationalism but to set discount the “trust” issue as a majory contributing factor for the challenges faced by the print media is to continue being in a state of denial. In doing so many potential customers are being overlooked.

By Raoul

May 6, 2009 5:22 PM | Link to this

I think there will be some more shrinkage of newspaper subscribers, but eventually there will come a point where a solid, but less numerous following will exist. There are just too many tidbits of information found in a daily paper to keep it a vital resource. I used to be a newspaper junkie myself, and they are good for washing windows. I enjoy the editorials and the speakups, but I also find the DDN to be just one of way too many boring shill-rags for the Democrat party, a party with a tent big enough to get pretty lost in. I hope the DDN survives. What would we all do without Vicks Book Nook?

By vick

May 6, 2009 4:41 PM | Link to this

Alice, Alice, Alice, you crack me up. Senator Craig insists that he was merely reading the newspaper in that airport bathroom stall. Of course, I know it must be true because I read it in a newspaper somewhere…

By Blowfly

May 6, 2009 4:02 PM | Link to this

The newspaper industry is suffering from a series of calamities: declining sources of add revenue (cities that use to have 10 department stores that all placed print adds now all the stores are owned by 2 companies - so only 2 adds are run); the newspapers created a business model that makes no sense at all (give away content for free online while charging for print versions); and a severe economic downturn. It’s bad news all the way around. I don’t see newspapers making a go of it based on a Kindle/iTunes model. The problem is that while people may pay for music, they are not likely to pay for facts and information. For one, you can’t copyright facts and information. Music does not work that way, you can copyright music, which gives the music publishers a hammer to stop those that are giving it away for fee. The newspapers don’t have this kind of leverage. As long as there’s one web site anywhere in the world that is willing to provide news for free, no one will pay for it. Also, people like to listen to the same song over and over again, but you don’t read the same news story over and over. People are not going to pay any near as much for news as they will for music (if they are willing to pay anything at all). To me it doesn’t seem like there’s much money in subscription based e-news services. The WSJ is now giving its content away for free on iPhones, why pay for it? Unless newspapers kind find a way to live on online add revenue, only a very few papers are going to survive on print circulation.

By Alice

May 6, 2009 2:53 PM | Link to this

Newspapers will never die completely away because I think there will always be at least a small market for slow but thorough news, but they are and will continue to be reduced to a small corner of the media market just as radio has become compared to the days prior to TV. There are so many options outside of newsprint that there’s no way they can compete in the same way. I don’t think inaccurate reporting (codeword for promoting leftist propaganda) is an explanation for the demise of one industry considering that real inaccurate reporting is as common among all media. What HAS changed across the board is not a move from left to right or right to left but a move towards sensationalism - in radio, print, TV, and internet. If a person has limited time in the day to get outside information and they have the choice between reading about who just won the South African presidency and what cancer treatment was just approved by the FDA or reading about a Democrat’s affair with a videographer and a Republican’s affinity for airport bathroom stalls… I guarantee that most would prefer the latter. In that respect, I just don’t see the connection between ratings and “accurate reporting”.

By vick

May 6, 2009 1:38 PM | Link to this

TRS, thanks, as always for sharing your views. While it is true that the Wall Street Journal and USA Today have not seen the drastic declines in circulation that many other newspapers are feeling, they are certainly not prospering the way that newspapers once did in the days of healthy advertising revenues. Rupert Murdoch grossly overpaid for the WSJ. And advertising revenue at USA Today which is owned by Gannett is not exactly setting the world on fire as it once did. Craigslist killed the classified cash cows at many newspapers. But we need newspapers, don’t you agree?

By TRS

May 6, 2009 1:21 PM | Link to this

I’m sure it will help somewhat down the road when the Kindles become more affordable; but, the delivery system is only a small part of the equation. Many simply don’t trust the the MSM to report all sides accurately. The founders weren’t particularly found of the press but they wanted an independent source watching government. Many feel that no longer is the case, case in point their enchantment with the current administration. Until the print media can reestablish its reputation they will continue to struggle. Case in point, the WSJ and USA are maintaining and even grew a bit. WSJ is certainly center right and USA center left but apparently their reputations have faired much better than the NYT, Globe, Constitution, LA Times and others. If the MSM continues to look at their problems as a delivery issue and fail to rebuild trust as an independent overseer, then people will continue to be “disenchanted”.

By Alice

May 6, 2009 12:39 PM | Link to this

Sounds like wishful thinking from WSJ. There isn’t anything anyone can do to avoid the direction the newspaper industry is going and if I see one more seminar, forum, essay, column or group discussion devoted to how newspapers can reverse the current trend and everyone can pretend that it is 1975 again and the internet doesn’t exist I am going to throw up. On the other hand, every time someone tells me I should be twittering, I feel as I did back in the days after election night in 2004 when I watched the lineup of wingnuts explain why 48% of the population (myself included) needed to acquire “values” - completely disconnected. With any luck, maybe in four years everyone will come to their senses.

By downsized

May 6, 2009 12:36 PM | Link to this

Newspapers are one of my favorite pleasures in life. When I travelled extensively for business, I would purchase local daily newspapers and relish in their unique styles and viewpoints. Sadly, when conglomerates like Gannett bought everything in sight, they all started to look alike. Bylines began to disappear. Their stories and topics were the same. About the only difference was the masthead and obituaries. Some independent papers still survive against all odds. Anything, which can enhance circulation and keep newspapers from completely disappearing would be a good thing. Recently, I was informed of how the Kindle had made life much more enjoyable for people with poor vision. That’s wonderful. I read the story in a newspaper.