Next up: Chicago Tribune

I stated "CRIMINALS of color". And then you accused me of bigotry against "poor Black people". (I have equal hatred for white criminals, but they aren't glorified by newspapers, so they are irrelevant to this conversation.)

I see "criminals of color" and "poor Black people" as very different, distinct, and non-exclusive groups of people. The fact that you apparently see them as interchangeable is YOUR problem, not mine. I hope you don't work in journalism anymore, because you have no business disseminating information to the public. But I wouldn't be surprised if you do, because your line of thinking is central to the problems of today's journalistic accuracy and fairness.

 

"I am a liberal Democrat myself, but in the last few years, I've found myself more aligned to Fox News than most newspapers."

Everything that followed that sounds like the adults in Peanuts cartoons.

 

What ever shit you posted didn't load.

 

Same old complaints, but no sustaining solutions, since 2000.®

 

You seem to believe that newspapers take too negative a view of our institutions, I may not be describing your views entirely accurately but I am not attempting to argue about definitions but instead to ask a question.

There are about 1,200 daily newspapers in the USA. Can you give examples of any of them that provide coverage similar to what you describe? I think there are a lot of small town papers in particular to adhere to something similar to your news judgements. But there must be at least one. How is that paper doing financially?

 

According to him, newspapers can all be saved if they solely write stories that make upper middle class white people feel good about themselves.

 

Nah, just don't want to read another 'adversity' sports feature after living in this shitscape for the last 10 months, ever.

 

Actually, I said newspapers can be saved if they write stories that fairly and accurately told the stories of people from all walks of life, including professions (such as police and teachers) that are commonly consisted of upper middle class white people (a group, by the way, that I am not a member of).

 

Ignoring the fact that you don’t seem to know that one of the core principals of journalism is holding people in power accountable ... why don’t you answer Lancey’s question for us? There are plenty of small newspapers with entirely white staffs that write the pat-on-the-back stories you want to see more often. Are those papers any more financially stable than other papers?

Your argument - covert racism aside - has almost nothing to do with how newspapers actually make money. At their peak, only 10-20 percent of newspaper revenue came from subscriptions. What happened to the other 80-90 percent is why newspapers are where they are today.

 

Dude, you literally spun my words to fit some who-knows-what narrative 3 times in your last 3 posts. First, you spin my criticism of criminals to bigotry against "poor black people". Then you spin my request for fair and accurate coverage of all groups to a demand to write stories to "make upper middle class white people feel good about themselves". And now you spin my request for fair and accurate coverage to "pat-on-the-back" stories. If your mode of operation is the norm in journalism, it's no wonder people don't trust newspapers anymore.

Fair and accurate means reporting ALL the important details, good and bad, not some details that paint one group in a completely negative light and another group with a can't-do-wrong light. I've already stated in an earlier post that everything that has been reported regarding BLM is 100% true and relevant, and should be reported. I've also stated a bunch of other facts that also are 100% true and relevant, but have been blatantly omitted by most newspapers. It's the newspaper's job to lay out all the relevant details, and let its readers decide who to blame and how much blame to assign -- not play "judge", and force its judgments down its readers' throats.

As for Lancey's question (sorry, I didn't see that earlier), I'm not a market specialist, but I know, like any industry, small newspaper finances correlate with the finances and reputation of the entire industry. You know that, too. Stop trying to spin this, too. If the population has an overall negative view of an industry, it's going to negatively affect every organization in the industry, even if a specific organization operates differently. It's called "guilty by association". No different than how a random police officer will be looked at negatively because of what Derek Chauvin did, no matter how good of an officer he is. I would like to think newspapers could play a role in differentiating those cops, but they've done the opposite.

And, yes, newspapers lost a lot of ad revenue, but they've also lost a lot of subscriptions. There is a relationship there. Newspaper could have done a lot more to slow the loss of subscriptions, which could have slowed (but not stopped) the loss of ad revenue, which could have bought more time to plan a transition into a digital business model. I've mentioned 2 entire major professions (teachers and police) that were once mainstay subscribers who have all but entirely abandoned newspapers, directly because of coverage decisions. I'm sure there are plenty of other professions in this same boat.

But you know what? Whatever. Just keep going down the current path. Other than feelings of sadness and frustration seeing my former profession (that I studied 4 years in college to break into) flushing itself down the toilet, I have absolutely no dog in this fight. How newspapers operate doesn't affect my life one way or another. (I'm not even white, so the newspaper industry's often unfair coverage of white people doesn't impact me either.) I'm making more than 3x my highest newspaper salary ($38,000) if you include my summer school and coaching stipends, and the state of the newspaper industry barely registers as a blip on my radar of everyday life. I came here hoping to start a civil conversation with people from my former profession about why coverage had become so slanted, and maybe spark some still working in the industry to reflect on that. But instead, I get my words spun wildly and personally attacked. So you carry on trying to divide our society, and I'll carry on trying to mold young minds into successful professionals.

 

Bye.