Saturday, November 5, 2016

Print Media is Almost Dead

I've mentioned I have a degree in Journalism (which I regret) and when I got my first few jobs as a reporter and editor I was astonished at the incompetence I encountered (I've met reporters and editors who were close to illiterate).

All three newspapers I worked for are now out of business.

I predicted it. They brought it on themselves.

TV's not doing so great, either.

I've also mentioned that with the ascent of such entertainment as Hulu and Netflix the TV news is going to be hollowed out - and good riddance. Eight dollars a month for Hulu? About $12 without ads? They're entertainment - and why should they do any news at all?

Who takes seriously clowns like Chris Wallace and George Stephanopoulos?

In my first classes I was taught - and it's true - the media (now called the Mainstream Media) are "gatekeepers." They decide what's news and what's not news.

Not anymore.

The gatekeepers are gone, destroyed by the Internet. No one saw it coming, not that I know of. I sure didn't.

The people now decide what's news and what's not news. Anyone can open their own blog. The people are the gatekeepers now. That's the beauty of decentralization.

Now of course there is a lot of nonsense on the Internet, and some of the nonsense makes it onto my own blog with some of the ludicrous comments I get. Not to mention the out-and-out lies. But people see though it.

At first the MSM tried to fight back, claiming bloggers weren't "real" journalists. I don't see that anymore. The Internet has become too powerful.

The print media is supported by advertising. The purpose of the print in most newspapers was to provide filler around the ads.

I once made up a story - and no one noticed.

I also found most of the advertising executives were close to being morons.

Some of the journalists were incompetent and so were the advertising people. Most of them don't even read the newspaper they work for.

No wonder print media is almost dead. I'm surprised it took so long.

I do empathize with all the people who’ve lost their jobs. They were just innocent victims. But this is an example of what Joseph Schumpeter called the “creative destruction” of the free market.

I know a lot of younger kids - say early 20s - who almost never watch TV. They get their information off of their smartphones. And they don't trust the MSM at all.

Occasionally I'll watch the PBS news. There are people on it who have no business being on TV, like Bonnie Erbe and Gwen Ifill.

A lot of PBS is supported by the federal government, which it should not do. That funding needs to be withdrawn.

The purpose of government is to support the well-being of the people, not try to propagandize them.

The only thing I see as still healthy is radio - and I have always preferred radio to TV. Radio is far more entertaining than all the newspapers that went out of business - and if something is not entertaining it will never last.

I doubt the newspapers in huge markets will ever go under. I had a girlfriend in college who won a Pulitzer Prize - and the last I heard she works for the daily in Los Angeles.

But newspapers in lesser markets? That's a different story (the newspaper in my hometown, never entertaining, went under a long time ago - and the building is now empty).

The future is going to be interesting indeed. But then, it always is.

13 comments:

Glen Filthie said...

Interesting indeed, Bob.

Consider all the skeletons rattling around in Hillary's closet: bad health, homosexuality, pedophilia, perversion, corruption and incompetence - and it's all gone viral.

Trump: crickets. Oh - he talked dirty to some whores years ago...and... and that's about it! I think the internet will drive you Trumpslide, Bob.

Anonymous said...

You missed one for Hillary's closet: Adultery: She cuckolded Bill with Webb Hubbell. It's glaringly obvious that Chelsea is not Bill Clinton's daughter.

Unknown said...

Webb Hubbell is Chelsea's father. Same fat lower lip and weak chin.

I hate leftist said...

In the very early 2000's, I began relying on the internet for news. I would buy the Sunday edition of the metro rag but then eventually stopped doing that. I remember getting a sales call for the paper and told the guy they were a bunch of damn commies I had no interest in reading and got most of my news off the net. The editorial board of the paper was always for more taxes and more asinine gun control laws.

This was before Youtube and in the days of dial-up. I even would listen to a couple of podcast before they were called that over a dial-up connection.

Anonymous said...


I haven't bought a paper newspaper in years. I get my news from the internet and blogs. I haven't watched network TV in years either - I get my movies and shows from Netflix, Hulu, HBOnow and Amazon Prime (I also haven't been to a movie theater in years either - I have my own 4K Ultra high-definition, wide-screen TV for that). I don't even watch the cable news shows anymore (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC). I'm in my 40's, but I imagine younger people are doing this as well.

How is main stream media and TV networks making money and surviving these days?

Unknown said...

They're supported by advertising. If it didn't work they wouldn't do it.

little dynamo said...

Information now is emerging about the collusion of the NY Times with poli-criminal elements in America. The Old Grey Lady hag-rag has been a propaganda tool of intel and the elite for decades, guiding the Marxist and feminist progs into power across the West. Manufacturing consent amongst the pseudo-intellectual Left, providing an institutional rationalization for the self-serving agendas of lefties.

Like her ideology, the Old Grey Lady deserves to die. In deceit and scandal and shame, even as she lived.

Farm Boy said...

OMG is Gwen Ifill an absolute left-wing communist partisan moron. How do these partisan hack idiots get themselves and their bankrupt, neanderthal ideology so deeply inserted into the public eye? The trend of people tuning out these morons is awesome. I hope it means that Trump will blow out the evil *itch on Tuesday.

DeNihilist said...

You must have heard Bob, that the NYT last quarter advertising revenue was down more then 97%! Advertisers are moving to the web big time.

Anonymous said...


I'm no expert, but 97% seems catastrophic. Are these newspapers making money from online subscriptions? The only thing that I pay for regarding the internet is my internet access. There are plenty of websites that are free to get the news. I'm not paying any fee, no matter how low, to subscribe to any online newspaper such as the NYT or Washington Post.

Anonymous said...

Craigslist and slanted reporting are killing newspapers, no doubt. Plus I think fewer people have birds as pets these days.

The TV networks seem to be following the same path, even though all they have to do is look at what happened to their print compadres. Dumb.

Local TV news will survive only if they maintain a semblance of objectivity. Lose the trust that was built over decades, and they're done for as well. There's a few places that qualify, but they're becoming a vanishing breed.

One Fat Oz Guy said...

I had to laugh while discussing how most of the media in Australia is either Left Wing or fake Right Wing - just enough to fool you into thinking it's actually right wing.
I pointed out the case of the Apex gangs in Melbourne (Muslim migrants beating, robbing people on the streets and in home invasions) where neither side reported real facts about the ethnicities or the crimes.
The guy I was talk to seemed to agree after a while.
I believe that the biggest lie isn't the devil fooling you into thinking he doesn't exist, it's fooling you into thinking you're getting all the news and in the preferred delivery conduit (left or right).
The same people who yell at you for saying something you disagree with, also yell at you when you tell them to shut up because apparently they have a right to say what they want that people they disagree with don't.
My Work provides both brands of newspapers in my lunch room, so I read the supposedly right wing one for free and confirm exactly what I know, which is if both right wing and left wing believe in gay marriage, who is opposing it? The media would have you believe dumb hicks.

Unknown said...

I read the news at Bing every day and I'm paid for it! A $5 Amazon gift card every month.