Feb 09 2008
Liberal Media Going Out Of Business
I have posted on this many times, but the liberal media destroyed its only true asset: its credibility. When it stopped being objective and allowed its news room to become 90% liberal it became a biased and unbalanced news source. From there it was only a matter of time before the news outlet is nothing more than another advocacy group spitting out propaganda.
And that is not news – which people crave. People really enjoy being informed (as opposed to manipulated). Look at the popularity of the cable science shows to see how popular information is to people. So to not be able to capitalize on humanity’s addiction to knowledge and information is to be doing something seriously wrong.
And what we see today with the US news media is falling readership and ad revenues, and therefore a path to corporate oblivion:
n just the past few weeks, The San Diego Union-Tribune eliminated more than 100 jobs, one-tenth of its work force. The Chicago Sun-Times began a round of deep newsroom layoffs, then put itself up for sale, and publishers in Minneapolis and Philadelphia warned that tough economics could force cuts there.
Not long ago, news like that would have drawn much commentary and hand-wringing in the newspaper business, but in the past few months, reductions have become so routine that they barely make a ripple outside each paper’s hometown.
…
“I’m an optimist, but it is very hard to be positive about what’s going on,” said Brian Tierney, publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News. “The next few years are transitional, and I think some papers aren’t going to make it.”
Advertising, the source of more than 80 percent of newspaper revenue, traditionally rose and fell with the overall economy. But in the past 12 to 18 months, that link has been broken.
In 2007, combined print and online ad revenue fell about 7 percent.
In the past six decades, only one other year – 2001, when there was a recession – had a steeper decline, according to the Newspaper Association of America. Adjusted for inflation, 2007 ad revenue was more than 20 percent below its peak in 2000.
What destroyed the media was their Bush hatred – which led them to take up anti-American positions so that Bush would get punished for the results. Only narcissistic fools would keep praying for failure in Iraq. But it takes special self destructive fool to root for it and print biased stories focused on the negative and ignoring the positive.
Want to lose readers? Ignore their accomplishments in the face of tough odds. The turn around in Iraq should be front page news, lauding the efforts of our fellow citizens there. But the egos of the SurrenderMedia, who put everything on America losing Iraq, cannot stomach reporting the actual news, the actual events as they are happening.
And that is why they are now going out of business. People look elsewhere for news since the old time media is all about political manipulation. And Americans are not addicted to manipulation – in fact they despise it. So how do you sell ads in a market people despise?? Clearly you don’t.
I stopped buying 2 papers because their news pages were both reprint from The New York Times or AP. Why buy a local paper which needs to be disposed of everyday when I can read what I want on the computer?
I stopped reading the NYtimes when they printed 50 (or somewhere around this number) front page articles on Abu Ghraib in a row. I still occasionally read it, but they lost much of their creditability with me. I hear now all they print is how the U.S. economy is going broke. I remember reading a few weeks ago, how the Wall Street Journal is going to replace the NYtimes as a source for where people get their news.
In addition, I hear their stock is around a ten year low? What is so difficult about being unbiased?
Kathie, you bring up a very good point that is key to why the newspaper industry is dying. They reprint the articles because many papers cannot afford a big editorial staff anymore – but the more they cut and reprint, the less reason they give for anyone to subscribe to them. And they can’t afford it because ad revenues are collapsing across the board, because advertisers find that as readership goes down the value of placing ads goes down. It’s a downward death spiral that only ends one way.
And AJ, although you’re correct that newspapers are dying, I think the cause and effect is a little more complicated than you’ve depicted it. It’s been clear since the late 90’s, to anyone who looks at the situation from a business point of view, that the newsprint business had entered a period of inevitable and inexorable decline. With the competition for ad revenue that the internet was bringing, there was no viable model to continue to grow revenues. And I do not know of a single paper that has come up with one yet – every attempt has failed, such as the “Times Select” disaster. Probably the WSJ has been the most successful, but their business plan for growth depends on cannibalizing readers from other, less successful papers. That’s a good plan for a while – but once the competitors are gone, you’re still stuck with the original problem, which is that all communication is going electronic and people will not be willing to pay for news when they can get it faster and in a more convenient package for free.
So, what does that do to management as this revelation sinks in? Everyone who has good business sense and who wants to make money, on every level, bails out of the business. Papers are sold, publishers retire, all the people who knew how to make it work in a hard nosed profit oriented way leave because there is no long term hope for turning things around. Who takes their place? Who makes up the only group of people who are willing to dedicate themselves to a failing, declining industry that cannot hope to turn a long term profit? Hard core idealogues, of course, who see this as a great vehicle to push their ideological views and who don’t really care about the long term viability of their operation. (or alternately, being idealogues, not businesspeople, they allow themselves to entertain risibly false hopes about their long term viability)
That’s who runs the newsprint business today, and that’s why they run it. Failure was guaranteed long ago, but admittedly the current crop is speeding it on its way.
The difference between this view and the one you’ve put forward is this: it wouldn’t matter if they changed to a more conservative, honest format. They will still fail, only not as quickly. In the big scheme of things, I suppose it’s just as well that they soak up the ideologues money and effort as quickly as possible. Within 20 years, a few local sports and theatre pages will be all that’s left of a once great industry.
Heh! I would think that the media lost credibility when they continued to defend Bill Clinton when he was in the office….long before they hated Bush.
Here’s the problem:
Say 51% of the population are left of center. Some “genius” discovers that fact and says “hey, we will reach more people with our ads if our news is left of center” or “we will alienate fewer viewers if our news is left of center” and so they do. Trouble is that each station and paper has their own “genius” who discovers this same fact. So now you have 10,000 outlets chasing 51% of the population. Now Fox News comes along and provides content that doesn’t insult the other 49%.
So I can watch ANY of my local TV news broadcasts, go to ANY of the major newspaper websites, or watch ANY of the cable news networks (save Fox) and get exactly the same news content. In fact, they are probably all simply repackaged versions of the AP news wire and whatever was in the New York Times this morning.
So the local newspaper or TV station is competing with thousands of others who all have exactly the same content and are competing for exactly the same eyeballs. And Fox gets ALL the eyeballs from the other 49% and so they get many more viewers, can probably charge much higher advertising rates, and so is much more profitable.
It is like having 15 burger stands in your town and they all have exactly the same burgers. 15 different named joints all selling Big Macs and there is only one chicken joint. While more people might like burgers than like chicken, I will bet you that one chicken joint has more cars in front of it than any of the burger joints.