The American Spectator

les grossman| 2.26.09 @ 4:24PM

I don't agree. Newspapers, with just a few exceptions, are propaganda organs for the left. I don't think the country "needs" propaganda, which is why the newspapers are dying. The day the NY Times and the Philly Inquirer announce their last issues, as the Rocky Mtn News did today, will be red letter days for me.

thirteen28| 2.26.09 @ 6:18PM

Two points:

1) With a few exceptions, daily newspapers in this country have done a miserable job of practicing objective journalism for quite some time, in favor of advancing an agenda (and almost always, a very liberal agenda). I'm not sure how that advances the interests of conservatives or the country at large, or anyone's interests other than that of doctrinaire liberals.

2) The dynamics of the internet might make the whole argument moot anyway. Most people are not going to pay for something that they can get free on the internet. And most advertisers are not going to pay for advertising in a declining medium that has local reach. Those facts exist independently of any ideology.

Interested Conservative| 2.26.09 @ 6:38PM

Quin - the analysis is correct, if untimely. It's 40-50 years out of date. Most of today's newspapers (and network news as well) are precisely "an informational vacant lot into which passersby can throw their junk" and the passersby being the "journalists" themselves.

As bad as the ideology is, even if reversed, the writing is horrible, the analysis simplistic and the value minimal.

Any number of theories cover this - credentialism instead of writing talent, mismanaging editing/reporting/development resources, political bias, and so on, but the product simply doesn't sell.

bluecollarbytes| 2.27.09 @ 8:16AM

from Thirteen29-" The dynamics of the internet might make the whole argument moot anyway. Most people are not going to pay for something that they can get free on the internet. "

I agree. I believe this is the foundational reason why wide-spread publication of the dailies is on a steep decline.

Even network television is suffering from the siphoning of ad dollars from the more 'traditional' media, dollars that are being thrown at the internet.

Conservatives will need to create their own internet-based media, and I don't mean more like NewsBusters, HuffingtonBlow and the like.

TennesseVolunteer| 2.27.09 @ 9:24AM

Quin, my local paper ran a list of all permitted gun owners, with home addresses, "for the public good"!
The Communist (commercial) Appeal of Memphis, TN is already a liberal rag that runs 9-10 liberal commentaries to one conservative one but then they have to print a list of people, who by income and interest, are most assuredly subscribers!
Papers like this deserve what they get. As soon as it is gone, small newspapers will spring up like weeds to fill the void. Let the free market work. I am an avid reader but since I can source your site and others, my local paper has become an afterthought!

J.C.Eaton| 2.27.09 @ 10:38AM

Hmmmmmm, the New York Times, The LA Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the list goes on and on. All Liberal, all lefty flotsam and jetsam, all sucking fiscal canal water and I detect a suggestion of sympathy for these journalistic Jacobins?!! You'll find that sympathy in your dictionary between scheis and syphilis. Best,

Alan Brooks| 2.27.09 @ 10:44AM

Denver Post was always a better paper than RMN

Thom| 2.27.09 @ 5:23PM

Quin, I must respectfully disagree. What you desire has been gone from this place nearly 2 decades in most large urban areas and there isn’t any way back because the journalistic profession required to maintain the quality of that institution is dead as well. If the “newspaper” business had been forced to separate into the “news”, “sport/entertainment” and “classified” business units 2 decades ago that which most people find of value in the daily newspaper today would still be viable but the “news” division is out and out an agenda driven propaganda machine for one political party. That naturally polarizes the customer base over time and eventually most people who disagree with the agenda of the “news” portion will not subsidized the rest of the paper for the pleasure of being lied to and deceived on a daily basis. I understand the romantic appeal of a daily paper and the value of an in-depth analysis that used to be the trademark of that media but the print media business has some of the same problems our Detroit automakers have. Too many poorly made products that not enough people want to spend their money on coupled with a declining number of good products at an increasing price that can’t subsidize the rest of the operation any longer. I’m with others, if it takes the loss of the “daily” paper to get rid of the agenda based News division so be it. The sooner the better. I turned off Network News during the first Gulf War and stopped taking a paper well before that. The power of choice is one of the only freedoms we have left so I would advise anyone that doesn’t like what they hear on the nightly News to do that same as I. Stop subsidizing that which you don’t like. You are voting with your dollars when you patronize that which you disagree with. Simply stop it. That’s the only way things are going to change.