Our vanishing newspapers

[Pachydermatous]

Not only has poll after poll shown that the worthies of our national news media are overwhelmingly liberal in outlook, they are also thoroughly unionized.

Those national-level journalists in the print media mostly belong to the Newspaper Guild, which got its start in the 1930s with Roosevelt’s National Recovery Act. Guilds originated in the Middle Ages as associations of independent professionals banded together to protect their economic interests. Modern reporters and editors are actually hired hands who have joined a union --- but it sounds so much more prestigious to call it a “guild.”

Back when most newspapers were owned by families and individuals, guilds swung a lot of weight. Since brother unions kept a death grip on a paper’s other major functions --- type-setting, stereotyping and press work --- altogether they literally held the paper’s life in their hands. And many weren’t averse to using that power. The 1970s and 1980s were decorated with the names of old dailies which bit the dust because of strikes and rising costs of production.

In the past month in Birmingham, we’ve seen the Post-Herald daily join the dinosaurs. It might be worthy of mention that the PH was the only Birmingham paper whose newsroom employees unionized by joining the Newspaper Guild. It wasn’t the only reason they tanked out, but it’s for sure the move didn’t help the paper survive and it’s even more certain it didn’t protect employee jobs.

Caught between the unions’ wage demands and reactionary work rules on one side, and the desperate need to fight costs by modernizing, many publishers sold out to chains. These huge organizations had the cash and muscle to automate. In short order most union printers in the newspaper business found themselves out of jobs. Although it didn’t suffer similar attrition, the Newspaper Guild today is about as impotent as the average liberal web site. Its members compensate by larding their news reports with union propaganda and their commentaries with liberal and Democrat insights,

 

[NYBamaFan]

I don't have a problem with a liberal print media, or a liberal media of any kind. I only grow concerned when the media begins purposely omitting news, or pieces of information, that refute their opinions. That has become commonplace today.

In other words, they can slant a story as much as they want, as long as they give me all of the facts. I can sort through the opinion. They are not giving us all of the facts any more, and that takes news and turns it into fiction...

 

[Bamaro]

Not only has poll after poll shown that the worthies of our national news media are overwhelmingly liberal in outlook, they are also thoroughly unionized.

Pachy, how do you consider a newspaper other than USA Today, NY Times & WSJ 'National'?
While the papers in major cities may have a liberal lean, the majority of newspapers throught the country lean to the conservative. The Pew Research Center did a survey after the 2000 election and actually found that there were more pro slanted Bush and anti Gore slanted articles by newspapers.
This whole liberal slant idea has been bantered about so much by the nuts like Hannity, Limbaugh & Colter that some are even beginning to believe it. It simply is NOT true. Especially when you break down con/lib into its parts. Are you talking about social issues, economic issues, unions, environment etc.

 

[Pachydermatous]

I don't have a problem with a liberal print media, or a liberal media of any kind. I only grow concerned when the media begins purposely omitting news, or pieces of information, that refute their opinions. That has become commonplace today.

And this is the tactic readers are least able to combat. It is difficult for individual reporters to "swim against the tide" of newsroom opinion. One notable example was the Newsweek reporter who first latched onto the Clinton-Monica scandal. The magzine sat on his story and refused to run it, since it reflected on the current newsroom hero. If Drudge hadn't sniffed out the scandal and blown it wide open, we would still be ignorant of Clinton's most memorable act while in the White House.

There's a fault in your reasoning because: a medium's liberal philosphy soon coaleses into an unchallengable certainty which rejects any evidence to the contrary. This sometimes occurs in conservative newsrooms, but since there are so few of them it doesn't register as a major problem. When the main portion of an information industry begins concealing facts and whole stories, you have big trouble.

 

[bobstod]

As paper after paper fell victim to rising costs and the staggering expense of modernizing, they fell, as you say, into the hands of major corporations. The vast majority of daily newspapers in this country are owned by about five corporations.

Needless to say, these corporations are massive donors to the republican party, which is and has always been the party of big business.

From that basis, Rush Limbaugh and others conclude that there is a huge liberal bias in newspaper reporting.

Yeah, right...

 

[NYBamaFan]

As paper after paper fell victim to rising costs and the staggering expense of modernizing, they fell, as you say, into the hands of major corporations. The vast majority of daily newspapers in this country are owned by about five corporations.

Needless to say, these corporations are massive donors to the republican party, which is and has always been the party of big business.

From that basis, Rush Limbaugh and others conclude that there is a huge liberal bias in newspaper reporting.

Yeah, right...

I live and work in the NY Metro area. I read the NY Times, Daily News, Newsday and New York Post regularily (along with some small local papers). The first three are clearly left leaning and the Post is clearly right leaning. This is not my opinion, it is fact. Here is an example:

About 2 months ago a man was killed by police while being chased in NYC. The first three papers ran headlines that read something like, "Police Kill Unarmed Black Man in Queens". The Post headline read something like, "Suspect Dies as Police Defend Themselves in Queens". Now, my headlines are not exact, but you get the point. Three papers want the reader to assume that the police are killers, and worse, killers of black men. One paper wants you to sympathize with the police officer who was forced to protect himself by killing a man.

As it turns out, all four papers wrote very good articles about the events surrounding the shooting and all four provided enough facts for anyone with the patience to read the entire article to form their own opinion. But all four papers slanted the coverage in a manner in line with their opinion of the police and police behavior in the city.

Is this media bias? Clearly - but as long as the necessary facts come along with the bias, I am not offended.

Do all papers lean left? No - but I only know of a few that lean right, and many that lean left. Is it because of their ownership? I doubt it. The fact is that papers are there to make money and each is run as a separate entity, with local readership in mind - even if they are owned by a large conglomerate. They hire editors and writers that will sell papers in their part of the country. Up here, that means a liberal slant. In Utah, you can bet that it means a conservative slant. Since most major metropolitan areas lean left, most large papers lean left...

 

[bobstod]

In Mobile it means a right slant, although there are still complaints from the right that the paper is liberal!

BTW, your example of the NYC coverage of that incident was hilarious.

I agree with you about putting in all the facts and giving the reader a chance to read between the lines to filter out the slant. The thread on here earlier about an "invasion" of Syria was an example of both slanting and failure to tell us the facts.

I consider myself a moderate or a progressive rather than a liberal; but when I hear of a person being shot by police, I am predisposed to believe they had a reason until I see plenty of evidence to the contrary...

 

[ValuJet]

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[CrimsonKing]

I tend to get my news by reading both the openly liberal and openly conservative slants on things. Between Molly Ivins and Rush, you'll find the whole truth in there somewhere.

"Mainstream" national journalism tends to be a bunch of corporate propaganda outfits trying to fill space between advertisements. Its bias is neither entirely left nor right, but corporatist and sensationalist.

They do what's good for the corporations. That bias is mostly right wing, but not always, since their bias favors the Hollywood Irritainment Industry as much as the more conservative industries. Most of the evidence I've seen of left wing bias has been about either Hollywood stuff, or the number of reporters who vote Democrat. However, the reporters aren't the ones running the show--the publishers and the major advertisers, who are usually ultraconservative, have the power to kill any story they don't like, and any reporter who rocks their boat is going to be out on his can, and will therefore censor himself.

You think you'll ever see NBC exposing wrongdoing by General Electric? You think Time's movie critic will ever pan a film made by Warner Bros?

And the other thing the mainstream media does is put on a circus to draw in the audience, regardless of how newsworthy it is. Hence, all the coverage of murders, the violence in Iraq, whether your pet might be psychic. Personal scandals involving individual politicians get all the coverage. What Congress is doing behind your back--especially the stuff that benefits corporations at the expense of other groups--they don't touch that with a barge pole.

In 2005, seems to me kicking the Newspaper guild around is like taking courageous shots against the corruption of the Nixon Administration.

 

[NYBamaFan]

I tend to get my news by reading both the openly liberal and openly conservative slants on things. Between Molly Ivins and Rush, you'll find the whole truth in there somewhere.

I do the same, but only read their opinions. I cannot stand Rush or Air America.

The internet is also a great choice. For other slants on US domestic news, I also frequent a few European sites...

 

[bobstod]

This thread was about our vanishing newspapers, and has been fairly informative about that. It has expanded slightly, as they tend to do; but the lesson that is emerging is that you better not rely on any one news source if you want the 'unslanted' truth.

I don't consider Rush Limbaugh or his left-wing counterparts to be 'news sources'. They are buffoons, circus clowns, court jesters, ham actors.