The American Spectator

Old Soldier| 4.17.09 @ 7:30AM

"The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper."

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."

Thomas Jefferson

Steve Clemens| 4.17.09 @ 7:58AM

I will really miss the strib. What will I use to start fires in the fireplace?

Griff| 4.17.09 @ 8:42AM

"While we appreciate comments from all vantage points, this site is not a forum for political viewpoints. If you have a problem with the newspaper's content we suggest you write a letter to the editor..."

I've written numerous letters to the editor of the Red Star, but none have been published to date. Expressing a conservative argument that liberals are unable to refute apparently doesn't make the editorial pages. Good riddance!

Mattled| 4.17.09 @ 8:53AM

One by one---they need to fail (much like Obambi's Marxist Utopia dreams).

Let's start with NYT, then NBC. Start calling advertisers on NBC.

Curly Smith| 4.17.09 @ 9:07AM

There's a continuing typo in the article that needs to be fixed. You omitted the "t" in "The Stinking Strib". Forget about them being a charity, how in the world did they, and the NYT, escape being shut down by the EPA and then classified as SuperFund Sites? Was somebody in the EPA paid to overlook the mass emissions of bio-waste?

Robert Rosencrans| 4.17.09 @ 9:31AM

If you force someone to eat chocolate cake every day, they will quickly tire of it.

The journalists in this country have been outed as social liberals, who vent their political beliefs through their half witted articles.

The public simply wants the facts and those are hard to find these days.

The liberal papers who are collapsing are proof positive the tea parties needed no central planning, and that you can't sell the public garbage and tell them it's cake.

The Only Republican in Seattle| 4.17.09 @ 10:55AM

It has admittedly been years ago, in another city, but I used to have a large Newhouse newspaper as a client. In those days we were pushed to cost justify our products and services to make the sale, and to do that you needed financial information on the client.

Problem was the newspaper didn't HAVE any financial information. Department heads only had a spending limit ($50K if I recall)... anything (and I mean *anything*) below that limit and they were free to buy whatever they wanted. Anything larger and they would either divide the invoice into pieces below their limit, or they would go to their manager with the next higher spending limit and have them make the purchase. Only on really large acquisitions did purchases rise to the level where central management might become involved, but since each department head ran his (always "his") own fiefdom and only bought for his own group, very few things ever encountered any higher order review.

Predictably the results were chaos. No two departments had the same equipment, and what they did have was rarely interoperable, but none would change what they used, because it was their turf. Nobody knew what their profit margins were, or if any particular function was profitable at all. Overall the paper was tremendously profitable... so much so that the actual margins at the top were a closely held secret. So much so that they just didn't bother with petty things like financial management... and what was most disturbing was that they were all incredibly smug about the whole arrangement. "Numbers? We don't got to show you no stinking numbers!"

So, these days when I see people like the Seattle Post Intelligencer (locally referred to as "The P.U.") going bankrupt, I just smile and say, "It's about time." Watching another font of political correctness and liberal dishonesty collapse is just frosting on the cake.

Howard| 4.17.09 @ 10:57AM

I love liberal hypocrisy. They always pounce on greedy businesses that do not pay taxes, but, when it comes to them, the rules no longer apply. Red Star, RIP

dcd| 4.17.09 @ 11:00AM

The tea parties could have used some central planning. If you want to do a protest demonstration schedule it for the weekend, or maybe only liberals have jobs to go to on a wednesday.

Marc Jeric| 4.17.09 @ 11:14AM

Our dcd is right - we need some central planning for the next tea party. One-million-man&women; march on Washington to protest our marxist government! Kill the earmarks! Government employee unions should be illegal - they are a criminal conspiracy against the people!

Terry| 4.17.09 @ 12:50PM

I like Mr. Jeric's idea about governmental workers. What is the point of they're being unionized? Is the U.S. government operating sweatshop conditions at the DMV-like offices? Even if it isn't a criminal conspiracy against the people, it sure seems like one. Now, since we cannot fund a campaign to outlaw government worker unions on anywhere near the scale that union lobbyists can, whatever should we do?

boria| 4.17.09 @ 1:45PM

A newspaper or the AP, or UPI, could sell its content on the web with advertisers sharing the page and paying for the "privilege" of appearing next to the article to help the bottom line.
Unfortunately the Strib does not qualify as a newspaper.
Only the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg can charge for access to their contents. Why? Because readers want quality and the truth!
Cheers!

El Rey| 4.17.09 @ 2:28PM

So, another leftwing rag bites the dust.

Gee, what will the Democrats do without their propaganda arms?

L. Ross| 4.17.09 @ 5:22PM

As we are watching these papers die on the vine, along with most cable news channels, I do feel something stirring in my breast. Yes, I do believe I feel Hope for Change in the political climate of this nation.

Timothy| 4.17.09 @ 9:25PM

These newspapers are just a microcosim of all failed liberal policies. From the Soviet Union all the way down to the Strib, these ponzi schemes reach the bottom of the pyarmid eventually.

PCP Smoker| 4.17.09 @ 10:26PM

The NY Times, Miami Herald, Chi Tribune and Sun Times, and the Trib all serve leftist metropolitan areas. So why are the libs in Minneapolis & St Paul and all other liberal cities not reading newspapers that are specifically tailored to them?
Have leftists grown bored with their own propaganda? WTF?

Cow Rie| 4.17.09 @ 10:49PM

Soon, the Government will give a tax payer bailout to the newspaper business.

Oh, wait. It will be know in the land of Obama as an "investment" for the "social benefit" of the community. Welcome to Orwell-o-bama.

bob montgomery| 4.17.09 @ 11:11PM

Maybe a benefit could be organized for the paper, and bring in talent like Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, David Shuster and Rachel Maddow to promote it ......?

Indy Republican| 4.18.09 @ 2:49AM

Obviously, the readers who don't agree with the paper's bias, and therefore didn't buy it, were at fault for its demise. I'm certain that qualifies for some sort of invented charitable handout from The Messiah.

Frantz I Korfhage| 4.18.09 @ 9:09AM

334 signers for the petition - hardly a groundswell of support! They have more employees than that, don't they?

Jimm T.| 4.18.09 @ 12:20PM

DON'T celebrate to soon! It appears Francy Nancy wants to "bailout" newspapers. Better contact you're congressional reps and put a stop to this farce. The government in charge of the news. Tommy and Benny must be rolling over in their graves.

Robert Rosencrans| 4.19.09 @ 9:19AM

Soon you will get your news from paid government agents.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Newspaper-bailout-fan-joins-Obama-team--43139717.html
It had gone largely unnoticed that former Los Angeles Times columnist and Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks had been tapped by the Obama administration for a senior spot in the Pentagon.

Brooks, whose last two columns at the Times were "Bail Out Journalism" and "Bush's Big Lies" is a pretty hard-line liberal who frequents the sets of Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann.

Her legal work, which focuses on international human rights law, includes stints with Amnesty International and the George Soros-funded Open Society Institute .

Her last diatribe against George W. Bush includes both scare quotes around "war on terror" and a Bush-Nazi comparison:
"How did such dangerously bad legal memos ever get taken seriously in the first place?

One answer is suggested by the so-called Big Lie theory of political propaganda, articulated most infamously by Adolf Hitler. Ordinary people "more readily fall victim to the big lie than the small lie," wrote Hitler, "since they themselves often tell small lies ... but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."

As I said, no neo-con is she. I suspect once she gets into a few staff meetings with actual military folks, she'll go over like sand fleas in Mosul. Brooks' boss, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Flourny may have her hands full.

But what about the idea of bailing out newspapers?

But Brooks' final piece at L.A. Times calling for a federal bailout of the newspaper industry had as a subhead "Other democracies pay for accurate reporting, so why shouldn't the U.S.?" What's breathtaking, though, is her suggestion that the government license approved news outlets and then fund their work.

"Years of foolish policies have left us with a choice: We can bail out journalism, using tax dollars and granting licenses in ways that encourage robust and independent reporting and commentary, or we can watch, wringing our hands, as more and more top journalists are laid off or bail out, leaving us with nothing in our newspapers but ads, entertainment features and crossword puzzles."

Brooks won't be setting media policy from the Pentagon, but this is another indication that the momentum for some kind of National Public Publishing is gathering steam in the new Washington.

We've already had the risible idea from Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., to allow newspapers to go tax exempt if they promise not to influence politics and lots of talk from nostalgic baby boomers like John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi about needing to hold on to old-fashioned newspapers.

I've spent my life since age 17 working for and loving newspapers. But the idea of a government-licensed press will destroy much of the innovation that will emerge from the creative destruction of the current media order.

Maybe papers can find a way to monetize content a la iTunes, or maybe they all have to be replaced by a million aggregated micro news outlets. Who knows, but we know that good ideas don't come from government bailouts.

Have you seen the PUMA?

Michael L. Hauschild| 4.19.09 @ 7:22PM

"Soon you will get your news from paid government agents." Bob, I believe you have your tenses confused. Also, living in the flyover zone has me somewhat at a disadvantage, where do I look for the PUMA?

surfcitybob| 4.21.09 @ 2:42AM

The failure of the liberal Government schools is complete, even though these failing papers serve liberal markets, no one can read anymore!

Radley| 4.21.09 @ 12:44PM

"The failure of the liberal Government schools is complete, even though these failing papers serve liberal markets, no one can read anymore!"

Include our immigration policies as well - 10s of millions of 85-IQ mestizos have no interest in, and no aptitude for, curling up on a Sunday morning to read think pieces, in any language.

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