This Is Why I Hate On The Media (A Remix to Beige's Remix)

 
Beige raises a couple very good points about the President's lack of Honeymoon. We shouldn't be surprised. The Media is driven now not by...you know...what's it called again?? Oh yeah, news. It's driven by News cycles, things that dominate coverage for a period of time, so the NewsMedia can devote its already scant resources to pounding the living @#$% out of it.

What are you laughing at? It sells papers, and well...someone out there's buyin'.

As far as the Newspapers are concerned, however, I'm not sure it's the Liberal Papers that are buying it in particular.

A couple of years ago, the New York Times decided to make you pay for the privilege of reading some (note, not all) of their online content. If you wanted to read Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, and Paul Krugman, you had to be a part of their premium access club.

The experiment lasted all of a year. You'll notice that the content is free again.

Weren't makin' no money.

So...it makes you wonder what exactly it is the Newspapers are complaining about? After all, most of them...at least the ones going out of business...are saying that it's the internet that's responsible.

Well, yes and no.

We've lost the Rocky Mountain News. We're about to lose the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Part of the problem is the fact that the Rocky Mountain News used to compete just against the other paper in town, the Denver Post.

Now they're competing against all of them.

I mean, across the planet...every single paper ever published, every day.

If you're a reader, and you want the latest Political News, or latest Foreign Policy News...and you're living in the Denver Area...are you really going to tell me your first choice is the Rocky Mountain News, when the BBC, Washington Post or New York Times is out there?

This happened with the auto industry back in the day. When it first started, there were hundreds of companies trying to make cars. You'll notice that only three survived (and barely that). The Marketplace found its water level. It could support three auto companies, nothing more.

If you lived in Denver and 5000 Newspapers opened up ...chances are 90% of them would fail.

Denver's Newspapers were only competing with each other one second, then Planet Earth the next.

Funny thing is, the Rocky Mountain News should've concentrated on local news, one area the BBC and Washington Post can't touch. They should have cut their budget a little bit, and--

--oh what was that?

They've already done that...all while sacrificing national and international coverage they used to do on their own??

Ugh.

This is going to be an ugly process. It's not the Newspapers' fault...although cutting back on newsgathering couldn't have been a smart move. The Marketplace expanded. The playing field changed. A lot of Newspapers are going to fail, including ones you like and depend on.