In a PJM piece titled “Where Have All the Smart Media Moguls Gone?” Burt Prelutsky asks a couple of good questions about the news media:
….if you are a conservative and every time you pick up your daily newspaper, you find that everything you believe, not to mention all the things you hold dear, are being ridiculed not only on the editorial page, but throughout the entire paper, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the day finally dawns when a lot of them are going to say, “Why am I paying for this bilge?”
The question that comes to mind is why a business – any business – would go out of its way to antagonize, depending on the city, between, say, 40 and 60% of its market. Is it possible that while my back was turned, the DNC bought up every paper in the country except for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times?
While you’d never know it, the Philadelphia Inquirer was purchased by a conglomerate dominated by influential Republicans. In two years, they haven’t made any changes I’ve been able to see. Certainly none that are reflected in the paper’s editorial stances.
I keep up my subscription, though, because I have this stubborn and maybe goofy idea that a daily newspaper is a hallmark of civilization.
And while I don’t consider myself a conservative, I’ve found that in terms of reading a conventional daily newspaper, being a small-l libertarian is even worse.
Unless, that is, you think having twice as many things to disagree with a newspaper about is “better.”
(From a blogger perspective, it may be!)
UPDATE: A related battle of the bilge (or maybe a battle between the bilges?) is the battle between newspapers and TV stations for online readers. This has produced what Jack D. Lail calls a “golden age”:
A golden age amid the rubble of declining revenues for newspapers and local TV stations? A golden age amid downsizing that is shrinking to newsrooms to the lowest levels in decades? A golden age amid the the boardroom battles in some of the largest media companies?
It certainly is and I say freakin’ bring it on.
All-media-meets on the Web has created a local news and advertising battlezone in market-after-market the likes of which I’ve never seen in a 30-plus-year career.
(Via Glenn Reynolds.) They also tend to keep an eye on each other, which increases honest reporting.
(And that’s not even factoring in the role of blogs…. The more Golden Ages, the better!)
Comments
3 responses to “The battle of the bilge”
I pawned off my TV in December 2002 and never bought a new one. I don’t miss it one bit. In fact, it is amazing how much my attitude improved afterwards. Instead of hearing endless doom and gloom, I simply observed the world through my own eyes rather than through a screen. The only downside is that if I were to spot a missing 12-year-old girl or encounter some scandalous celebrity on the street, then I would not recognize either one. I presume that it would be important for me to recognize them, since the media spends so much time covering them (at least they did in 2002).
Lo, now these many years ago, I grew up reading the Inquirer. I have it hunted down in odd locations at the Jersey shore, and in north Jersey, and in Lancaster, Pa (when it was harder to find).
But I got tired of being hectored and insulted and bored and misinformed.
To give one example, I got tired of Trudy Rubin’s a)ignorance or b)duplicity (chose one) about world affairs. She usually says something absolutely wrong in the first 3 paragraphs of her column. The things she gets wrong are common knowledge, easily tracked down in the world of Google, let alone Nexis. But she sticks to her tired, anti-Bush talking points.
I have gone from buying the paper every day of the week to a quick Sunday read-through.
I finally dropped the NYT 3-4 years ago. And the Inquirer is playing catch up.
Though, at least the Inquirer is not permitting much in the way of random anti-Bush insults in the sports, business, or arts columns the way the NYT does.
Our local paper runs editorials about how the race between Obama and Clinton is “tearing the electorate apart”.
They do not even feel it is necessary to acknowledge that there are voters who do not vote for Democrats.
When the current subscription runs out, as it will soon, they are going to find that we are in perfect harmony, as I no longer recognize their existence either.