Crisis in journalism: Boston Globe on the brink
By John Yemma | 04.04.09
In the most troubling news to date about the state of news industry, the New York Times is threatening to shut down the Boston Globe unless the Globe’s unions quickly agree to $20 million in cuts.
As the Globe reports today: “This week, the Globe newsroom completed cutting the equivalent of 50 full-time jobs. But the deteriorating economy has made the Globe’s financial outlook much worse … The Times Co. is seeking (new) concessions from the unions because the New York company, which is also suffering from the recession, can no longer subsidize the Globe’s losses…”
Hearst stopped printing the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, but the Seattle Times remains. Scripps shut down the Rocky Mountain News, but the Denver Post is still in business.
Boston without the Globe? That would leave the Boston Herald, a scrappy but underresourced — and all too often unserious — tabloid as Boston’s only local newspaper.
What’s at stake?
Even if unions and management come to terms on the concessions, as Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy notes in his Media Nation blog, “The problem is, I don’t think anyone believes this is a one-time deal. What will the next demand be?”
To understand what is at stake, it is worth reading or listening to a thoughtful lecture that Globe editor Marty Baron gave on Thursday at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Baron outlined the severe challenges facing newspapers in a talk titled “The Incredible Shrinking Newsroom: How can fewer reporters meet increasing demands for coverage?”
His is a sober message about the crucial importance of journalism (click here to listen to it), A key quote:
“In many ways, we are headed for a thrilling new world of media. Technology allows journalists today to tell stories in ways that were never possible before, to reach audiences larger than ever, and to build a tight and more intimate bond with the public. For young journalists, there can be remarkable opportunity as old media models crumble and as an entrepreneurial culture takes hold in a field that has long been dominated by overbearing media behemoths. There is a lot to be excited about, and a lot that is healthy.”
He continues:
“There will be many experiments, many new models. Some will be nonprofit. But many will seek to make a profit, a big one. An era of entrepreneurship for journalism has begun. Entrepreneurship comes with greater risks…. There also are risks for the practice of journalism. There are risks that journalism will turn cynically to the quick, the easy, and the cheap — that a story’s greatest accomplishment will be to get a million page views, rather than to correct an injustice, or unearth wrongdoing, or give voice to people who would not otherwise be heard.”
Boston and the Globe
Marty Baron is one of the great journalists of this era. (Full disclosure: He is also my friend and former boss.) Under his leadership, the Globe broke the landmark story of the cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Day in and and day out, the Globe holds politicians accountable; investigates fraud, waste, and abuse; and reports on social, business, scientific, and cultural news in a city that, with its rich mix of academic institutions and brainpower, can still be fairly described as “the Athens of America.”
Boston without the Boston Globe is unthinkable. But every day, the unthinkable seems to be happening in the news world.
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2. Mike LaMoy | 04.04.09
I haven’t seen any mention of one of the main reasons that many large city newspapers are losing revenue or shutting down entirely; everyone keeps citing loss of advertising revenue, circulation declines, etc., but no one has yet admitted that a lot of us are tired of “newspapers” that have a pronounced, unapologetic leftist slant to them, and they have become nothing more than political vehicles. The NY Times, the Globe, the LA Times, the Chicago Trib, the Seattle P-I, and on and on. An awful lot of us out here don’t really care much for the selective “reporting” and being told what to think.
3. Larry | 04.04.09
The Globe has also been one of the most consistently left-leaning, biased and arrogant news organizations in the country for decades.
As for Boston being the Athens of America–well, yes, if you are thinking of the second-tier city which Athens is today, as opposed to its pre-eminent status in earlier times.
4. George Moore | 04.04.09
Mr. Yemma, thank you for your article of interest. Bottom line is Globes financial situation not how New York Times or Hearst Co. represents situation. Maybe they are just looking for way to spend resources differently.
The LA Times operating profit margin over 20% way back in 2006 but the Editor was still replaced.
5. J Cline | 04.04.09
We could have done without the crude and salacious muckracking your buddy Marty Baron initiated in his hit pieces on the Catholic Church. It has done nothing but create a wave of religious hatred against Catholics and has further damaged vocations in a time when it is hard enough to find young men willing to think of anything but themselves.
Goodbye, Globe, and don’t let the door hit you in the a##.
6. Adrienne Tybjerg | 04.04.09
I understand that the troubles newspapers are having maybe mostly due to the economic downturn and turning to the web. But some of a paper’s health is also due to the choices owners and editors make. For years the quality of reporting at the Globe - fact checking, historical perspective, well-rounded story, the policing of journalists, has really been all over the place. The Globe often publishes addresses or other easily identifiable information of people who have committed no crime, leaving them open to harassment or worse. Stories are often not understandable because some piece of information is left out, or it’s flat because the journalist is just regurgitating only the bare facts. Or is in the other extreme, too much information.
This week, for instance, they allowed instant (and some extremely upsetting) comments online about the horrible psychotic murder/suicide with those poor kids in Boston, as well as publishing extremely detailed account of what happened to the 5-year old. For what purpose? I have long felt that the editor views people’s lives as a commodity, to be waved about like a flag when it suits the paper, with little care about how it affects the community or individuals.
Honestly, I would feel bad about the demise of any newspaper. However, they’ve had many chances to take journalism more seriously and to honor the community with more substantive reporting. It’s too bad that they missed the concept of courting community loyalty through reporting integrity, because I think that they could use a little loyalty about now.
7. KCN | 04.04.09
No one likes to see a great newspaper die a slow death–let a thousand viewpoints bloom!–but ever since the “NY Times” bought the “Boston Globe” from the Taylor family, it has gone downhill. It’s not clear what the “NY Times” business model has been, except maybe to eliminate a regional competitor. While both are “Democrat” newspapers, the “Globe” always reads like their reporters and editors actually believe what they write. Since the notorious Howell Raines episode some years ago, the “NY Times” always has had a faintly sinister approach to covering the news that suggests they cook every story to fit some kind of obscure agenda. One could wish that the “NY Times” would sell the newspaper back to local interests. You may recall that some Boston-area businesspeople put out feelers a few years ago to purchase the paper.
We readers buy newspapers to acquire *reliable* information, not smarmy editorializing. Frankly, if more dying newspapers wrote the way the respectable “C.S. Monitor” still writes, they’d be doing a lot better.
8. Ned | 04.04.09
Regarding the comments that newspapers like the GLOBE are failing because of their left-leaning content is another example of neocon’s tactic: If you don’t like the message, demonize the messenger. Just ask Scott McClellan, Patrick McNeil, Joe Wilson, etc. etc. If your point were true, the NY POST would not be spiralling out of existance as well.
9. Janet Rae-Dupree | 04.04.09
The early commenters who blame the death of American newspapers on “left-leaning” media are missing the point entirely. America’s founding fathers, particularly Jefferson and Madison, knew that a democracy could not endure without the free flow of information thru the press. Don’t like the banalities that newspapers offer? Ya gotta take the good with the bad. Personally, I’d rather know that religious leaders are abusing the public trust, that there is lead in our children’s toys, that the mayor is robbing the city, that there is a mysterious spike in local cancer cases - all stories that never would have become public without the dedicated efforts of our nation’s newspapers. Truth shines light that keeps us free. Every newspaper’s death dims that light and represents a loss from which America may never recover.
10. james | 04.04.09
As daily print newspapers move to the Web, hopefully strong weekly print newspapers will reappear. Print newspapers have a power and influence that can never be replaced by reading something on a screen.
11. Hilary Smith | 04.04.09
Why is it that when it comes to executive bonuses, contracts are sacred, but when it comes to unions, we’re so quick to dismantle them?
12. Sinclair | 04.04.09
The problem with the business model of the contemporary newspaper, embodies by the Boston Globe, is not that it is “left-leaning” as some commenters assert here, but that it is too even-handed. On the contrary, the traditional media have granted too much credence and ink to public relations professionals. The Associated Press is the worst offender of all, often reprinting language from corporate and political press releases without critical assessment.
No, the problem with the Globe is not that it leans too far to the left. The problem with the Globe is that it treats the reactionary strain of political rhetoric offered up by such pseudo-conservative luminaries as Jeff Jacoby as worthy of anything beyond the derisive mockery best done by Stephen Colbert.
13. Meri Fol-Okamoto | 04.04.09
Journalism is the oxygen that ignites debate and keeps community alive and aware. It raises questions and lets a busy readership learn about issues in depth and behind-the-scenes. For example, I would like to see some reporter and investigator write about why New Jersey tap water tastes likes chemicals. What, exactly, are the water companies trying to kill in there? Am I drinking pesticides and gasoline from runoff in yards and streets? Do you think that the water company will tell me, or do you think that a newspaper would be more likely to assign someone to muckrake and report to you and me–the public? Journalism is risky and it is also important–unless you want to live in a dreamland of fantasy and propaganda.
14. P. Lewis | 04.04.09
Before I stopped subscribing to my local newspaper, I had never seen so much hard left neolib trash in my life. It’s been almost 10 years now since I’ve moved on to the Internet, and I rejoice every time I see another fictionpaper bite the dust. I find them to be hopelessly anti-Christian, and disturbingly anti-White.
16. David McClurkin | 04.04.09
Bill Moyers spoke last June at the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis. Your heading today echoed his title: ‘Journalism in Profound Crisis,’ so I would like to share and some of what he said.
Moyers said the work of the media reform movement has “challenged the stranglehold of mega-media corporations over our press” and fostered “alternative and independent sources of news and information that people can trust.”
It would seem that many factors are at work in the disruption of business as usual for newspapers in particular. He cited the exposés last year about government propaganda in mainstream media as a symptom of “journalism in profound crisis.”
At the root of this crisis, Moyers said, is media consolidation. “As conglomerates swallow up newspapers, magazines, publishing houses and broadcast outlets, news organizations are folded into entertainment divisions. The news hole in the print media shrinks to make room for ads, celebrities, nonsense and propaganda, and the news we need to know slips from sight.”
Hence, in my personal opinion, we now have the ascendancy of citizen-based, web-facilitated “new” journalism. Newspapers seem to have become so yesterday
17. doug | 04.04.09
I think “dub” is absolutely right–I don’t think any newspaper who doesn’t agree with my thinking should exist. Freedom of the press? Bah, it’s all a liberal conspiracy to destroy the real America.
18. Tyrone Washington | 04.04.09
Since nobody is reading the Globe (or the Times for that matter) what does it matter? They are fading away and nobody below the age of 40 notices or cares.
19. Paul | 04.04.09
The Globe does well with local stories but fails miserably when it comes to national and world news. It falls into line with the rest of the right wing controlled national media, feeding the government’s planted stories in uncritical compliance with “big brother”. Witness it’s parent’s active engagement in the drive to war in Iraq. The “gray lady” has a lot of blood on her hands from that one. Keep the Globe for it’s local stories and investigative journalism, I’ll get my national and world news elsewhere.
20. Stanley Krute | 04.04.09
For me, the deathwatch began when the paper was sold to the NY Times. It was sad that there was nobody in the younger generations of the Taylor family who wanted to step up to the plate and keep running the paper. I can’t think of any/many instances where a family-owned business sold itself to a large corporation and thence prospered.
Emblematic of a sad cultural trend where we would sell our heritage for a short burst of cash now.
As to those fulminating about the “left lean” of the Globe: come on back when you can come up with a single example of a “right leaning” news source that provides the depth of news coverage and wide range of op-ed viewpoints as the Globe.
21. Tom | 04.04.09
“Regarding the comments that newspapers like the GLOBE are failing because of their left-leaning content is another example of neocon’s tactic: If you don’t like the message, demonize the messenger”
Wow. After the past year of the media *consistently* demonizing Bush, Palin, and Limbaugh, I only have one thing to say to you - pot, this is the kettle. You’re black.
22. dom youngross | 04.05.09
I can’t even remember when I last bought a newspaper, yet the demise of print newspapers still saddens me somewhat — end of an era thing.
But what good is any newspaper though, no matter how many prizes and awards it may win for journalistic integrity and excellence, given a self-seeking and spineless Congress and the number of people so willingly bamboozled by either Bush or Obama?
Newspapers reported the faulty intelligence behind the WMD argument for invading Iraq, made Colin Powell look like the biggest jackass since Neville Chamberlain, and no significant public outcry pressured Congress to reverse Bush’s intended course.
Now newspapers report that Obama will cut the deficit in half in four-years time, AFTER he and a completely-partisan Congress jacks the 2010 budget deficit to the rafters, and 55% of the people react “Yay!”
If the truth of the news itself is not valued, how could the continuance of originating news sources be profitable?
23. Kathy | 04.05.09
Journalists seem to be ignorant of the fact that this country’s evenly split between conservatives and liberals. Unless they become able to report evenly, more publications will go under and more jobs will be lost. Why would conservatives continue to read publications that insult and demean their core values?
24. Richard | 04.05.09
Some good points made here, and some less-relevant ones. From a business perspective, it’s really very simple, in my view.
I live in Florida. I routinely read news stories, whether mendacious or honest — and most of them ARE mendacious — originated by newspapers and news websites that are based outside my state. But I read all these stories online! Clearly, I’m not going to SUBSCRIBE to all the print versions, just so I can see the occasional story of interest to me!
What does this mean?
It means that the print version of the Globe is for the benefit of the people of greater Boston. If they don’t *want* a print version of their largest newspaper, then they’ll continue cutting back on their purchases of print copies, and the print division will go out business. If print circulation resurges due to concern for the health of the print division, then that division can survive, provided there is appropriate resource management. Responsible management is a necessity, not just during a depression, but always.
Now, could the Globe help itself out by catering better to what the reading public wants to see? Probably, but I don’t think that alone would save their print version. For myself, it certainly would make the difference in whether I would ever resume paying for my local paper. But I am not the typical consumer. I think most people are willing to pay a certain amount for content, even if most of it fails their personal standards. But if given the choice between “get it free” and “pay for it”, they just don’t feel motivated to pay for a print copy. And I don’t blame them one bit.
I think that a responsible newspaper should continue producing a smaller number of print copies for posterity to read in the libraries and to have passed to them by their parents, but perhaps that newspaper should not go on with its previous habit of distributing tens of thousands of copies to newstands and newsracks every day. They’re going to have to accept that their ad revenue, in real terms, is never going to come back to its old levels. This means producing far fewer print copies, and making the price of a print copy reflect the new reality.
They should NOT begin charging for online content, unless they really have a yearning for chapter 7.
And finally, last but not least, they may as well stop blaming the public for their own shortcomings. They’re simply not fooling anyone, any more.
25. Sinclair | 04.05.09
Tom claims that the traditional media spent the past year consistently “demonizing” Bush, Palin and Limbaugh. The irony here, is that this triumvirate of pseudo-conservatives were openly ridiculed by everyday American citizens across the Internet, where primary sources and video clips are recorded for posterity. How stupid do you think we are?
* Sarah Palin’s stunning claim to be qualified as vice-president because “Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace” of Alaska is permanently captured on YouTube. Only those citizens incapable of using Google would claim she never said this.
* Rush Limbaugh’s claim that Gordon Brown will die of “anal poisoning” because of his “slobbering” over Barack Obama is now archived at various locations on the Internet.
* And let us not forget George Bush’s outright lies about WMD in Iraq, disregard for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and gross negligence in the face of economic collapse.
The question is then is why has the traditional media ever taken these pseudo-conservative buffoons seriously? Informed American citizens openly scorn the posturing and idiocy of these icons of ignorance.
26. PJP | 04.05.09
Welcome to capitalism! Newspapers that are failing have created a product that has failed the test of supply and demand. The question is, will our new populist/socialist government chose to bail them out? Supply and demand does work. Liberalism does not believe that; the Globe’s editors and owners felt they could be liberal extremists and not be accountable for their product. However, this has put them in the same class as GM; arrogantly manufacturing a product that people do not choose to buy. As to Boston being Athens, what a great example of the arrogance that has gotten the Globe in trouble.
27. Chris | 04.05.09
News papers need to move to computer format and start having comparable subscriptions and advertising fees of their regular papers. They might even be able to make a profit.
28. local yokel | 04.05.09
The globe has been getting thinner and thinner, a positively anorexic newspaper. Arts became part of the TV “g” section. Business is now part of Metro. Unless some boston businessguys buy it for bupkis and bring it back to life, its hardly worth the subscription.
Maybe the NYTimes will add a New England section and replace the Globe with itself. I can’t imagine reading the tabloid alternative.
29. Tommy | 04.05.09
Like Hannity said journalism died in 2008 with the coverage of Obama.Newspapers have fallen on their own swords. R.I.P.!
30. Sinclair | 04.05.09
Republican media advisor, Roger Ailes, has done his best to kill journalism by transforming it into sensationalist propaganda.
Fortunately, real investigative journalism is alive and kicking in the work of Simon Johnson, Seymour Hersh, and Charlie Savage.
Those who would claim to be “Fair and Balanced” are the most biased propagandists of all.
31. Turkued | 04.05.09
New York interests should not be allowed to control Boston’s newspaper.
Let the Times sell and get out of here!
We don’t want you.
32. Carolyn | 04.06.09
Interesting that so many commenters here believe the Globe’s financial problems stem from its so-called left-leaning agenda. I could see that as a reason for diminished readership in a more conservative area of the country, but it’s hardly probable that heavily Democratic Massachusetts would spurn a newspaper that supported its opinions.
More likely to blame are the same issues that have closed other papers mentioned above, and that the Monitor itself has taken steps to circumvent: the transition of readers from print to (free) online; the decline in ad spend; the proliferation of other, non-traditional sources of information.
33. Bill Fleming | 04.06.09
I seem to remember Erwin D Canham stating in his book “Commitment to Freedom”, that The Christian Science Monitor was both a local and national newspaper. There was originally a “local” Boston edition of The Monitor. So get in there guys and give Bostonians the quality local news that The Globe is giving them. As for The Boston Globe, it needs to change its business model if it’s to survive.
34. SdS | 04.06.09
So, why is this a surprise? The reporting model dying in this article is directly contrasted by the very ability to interact with media through various posts such as those listed. It should have been a wake-up call years ago. Coupled with the shackles of union agreements, unfettered political bias and viable news alternatives, traditional mainstream media is under attack. The thinking public is voting with their dollars that enough is enough. For my part, I say good riddance!
35. Laurie | 04.06.09
I hope the CS Monitor takes note of the many comments here about the Globe’s LEFT leaning. The Monitor is considered a LEFT leaning paper. I am still reluctant to subscribe to it because I am so wary of its political slant. It should be fair and balanced! If should present a Christian Science world-view, or it should present both political views. For instance, it is silly for the Christian Science Monitor to spread FEAR of global warming. But, if you can’t present the highest view, then report fairly on BOTH political views.
And to those who criticize the few Conservative news outlets: you have ABC,NBC,CBS,CNN, and every major paper in the country equally as propogandist of leftist ideas, and you don’t even see it. If you want something fair, sacrafice one of your MANY leftist outlets to be fair, rather than condemning FOX for having the courage to present the other side! Thank you Roger Ailes and FOX!
36. TKPedersen | 04.06.09
In the later part of the Twentieth Century there arose a tremendous pressure on publicly held firms to “keep up with the Jones” and show continuous maximized returns to shareholders. Because of this pressure, new CEOs were appointed from the financial side of firms because of their knowledge of how to maximize the “black ink.” They were very good at this, but were usually rather unsophisticated in the reality of “Operations,” and had no real sympathy for the cycles of sales and planning for tomorrow by investing in infrastructure for the future…it was about profits today. (Arguably, this is part of the origin of today’s auto industry crisis, as well as the media decline…but I digress.)
In the Newspaper business, this resulted in pressure by publishers to maximize and increase circulation. To achieve this, many editors succumbed to the temptation to sensationalize stories, to go the tabloid route. This appeared to be successful and every newspaper (and TV also) adopted this approach. And here is the foundation of their ultimate failure. They assumed that the increased circulation represented the majority of their readership. They had chosen to make content fit the desires of that small percentage that represented the additional readership, not the interest and demands of the majority of their established circulation, that majority that insured the ability to charge certain advertising rates and that covered the cost of a professional operation. Editors with a fanatic zeal for professionally written stories (those with the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How, that left out the adjectives of judgment, leaving to the reader to decide Good and Bad) were retired and replaced with men not so zealous and who were on the same page with the publisher’s view of the world and of the business.
As a result, reporters became more and more sloppy in their writing. Everyone has opinions (reporters more than most) and now not only were they allowed, they were encouraged to judge in their news articles. No longer did they have to wait for their turn for an opinion piece on the Op/Ed page…they could opine every day. And they did.
What they did not realize was that the rise of the Internet allowed everyone to find that source that fed their own opinions much more finitely than could a newspaper with a limited circulation area. That base that had supported them for years was eroded because the newspaper ceased to provide News without opinion on the front page. Many people bought papers where they never read the Editorial Pages because they knew that they disagreed with the Publisher’s and Editor’s point of view, but they bought them because they got straight news in the rest of the paper.
So, instead of sticking with what they could do best (searching out and reporting on local events in depth, with accuracy and then allowing readers to judge) they struggled to compete with electronic media that had the absolute advantage of covering the whole world to get numbers (readership), which was never possible for newspapers.
Makes the Auto executives look like geniuses in comparison, doesn’t it.
And the penalty for the public is there are no longer professional reporters that we can depend on to dig out real facts and report them to us in a clean format. We have to go to multiple sources on the web, Google until our fingers are sore and, because of the lack of dependable on the ground intelligence, still are left unsure of the veracity of our information…and it is good information that makes for the opportunity for good decisions. In short, we are all royally ******. Those that suggest this is not true, in my opinion, have already finished the Kool-aide.
37. benbarr | 04.06.09
reading all the comments i find that the leading problem is that the readers no longer believe what is being written as the truth. I tend to agree with this and find that if i spend the time and search the web on articles i can come to some idea of what is going on.
38. Edmund A. Schofield | 04.06.09
The Boston Globe (I sometimes spell, and pronounce it, “Globbe,” especially when I’m angry at or disappointed in it) in some ways deserves its fate; at the very least, it has “asked for it.” Nonetheless, I hope that it scrapes through. It matters not the least to me whether a news source is “liberal” or “conservative,” but whether its news is, in fact, news: fair, accurate, true. Why should I pay for untruths!?
When I returned to New England nearly thirty years ago I heard wonderful things about the Globe but soon became disillusioned with it, largely because of the way its reporters and columnists all too often mocked and mistreated well-meaning people who simply were trying to make the world a better place. Some of its columnists have made a living making fun of other people, just for the “fun” of it–a gross misuse of power and a betrayal of journalistic ethics. Though the Globe could be almost ruthlessly accurate and thorough in investigative articles about true scoundrels, it too often seemed to go after powerless people and institutions it simply didn’t like. I saw it time and again, and finally came to view the paper with skepticism, and even a bit of the cynicism it so readily used to skewer innocent people. One example that I remember most clearly is the shameless way it went after the Monitor Channel. [Disclosure: I am not a Christian Scientist.]
But its current problems have little to do with me. I heartily agree with Turkued, who says (above) that “New York interests should not be allowed to control Boston’s newspaper. Let the Times sell and get out of here! We don’t want you.” I would also say the same regarding my own hometown paper, the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, Mass., owned by the Times and controlled via the nearby Globe. Perhaps the biggest part of the problem for the print news media is the extremes of greed to which the profit motive has been pushed by their shareholders, but for my hometown paper keen competition from the Globe is also a factor (there was no competition when the T&G was owned by the San Francisco Chronicle), and for both the Globe and the T&G, the Times’ mistimed construction of its grandiose new quarters, which has forced it to suck even more resources from our struggling hometown papers. The Times’ current financial crisis is also a result of its shameless role in leading the country to war in 2002. The self-proclaimed “newspaper of record” should not issue propaganda, misinformation, or disinformation. It has a lot to atone for before it can ever rebuild its lost credibility. In the meantime, we all pay the price!
39. Luke | 04.06.09
You liberal apologists can say what you want, but people vote with their feet, and they are not buying the liberal *** that comes out of the Globe.
People no longer care hear the condescending liberal bias that spews from the Globe. People are insulted by the absurdity of being told that their good business sense and hard work gives them an ‘unfair’ advantage.
Pay twice the wage for half the work to your union cronies if you like. But we are seeing the consequences now, such as GM and the other UAW automakers in ruins while foreign makers do much better in the south with the same American workers but no UAW waste. The Globe’s unions can stand around and watch the house burn down but they are as much to blame.
It is a shame to see the Globe go out but it is the consequence of years of abuse and neglect by its editors and unions.
40. Edmund A. Schofield | 04.06.09
“benbarr” is absolutely right: “the leading problem is that the readers no longer believe what is being written as the truth,” which is why I, too, “find that if i spend the time and search the web on articles i can come to some idea of what is [really] going on.”
41. Cindy L | 04.06.09
As a newspaper reader and a professional journalist, I am truly saddened by all of this. And yet, in many ways, I can see where most newspapers have short-changed readers in recent years. Our own local daily started losing subscribers, local advertisers, and everyone’s respect when it began pulling most of its news and lifestyle columns from the wire services — and got rid of its best local columnists and local reporters. The local paper simply morphed into a smaller version of USA Today, padded with national celebrity gossip and little of interest or value to our neighboring communities. If daily and weekly newspapers all over the country would truly bring back the “local” in local newspapers, they might have a chance. Maybe it’s too late.
42. graywolf | 04.06.09
As much as I’d like to ascribe the demise of all these leftist propoganda sheets to their biases and generally dishonest “reporting”, the truth is that newspapers are dying because of CRAIGSLIST and the crash of the real estate and automobile advertising markets.
They all were rooting for a “Bush - recession” and they got it.
Be careful what you wish for.
43. glorybe1929 | 04.06.09
I would like to congratulate the Boston Globe for having the **** to truthfully report the Crimes Against Hunanity committed by the Roman Catholic Church for centuries. The sexual Abuse of Children broke in Boston and was on the Internet immediately following and should be spoken about in every newspaper in the world, everyday, so you don’t ever forget it. It is happening all over the civilized world. It happens in the uncivilized world also but we never hear about it. WE should be OUTRAGED!We live in the United States of America, not Rhowanda..The SOL’s should never run out for the victims of child sexual abuse by Priests, Rabis or anyone. Ask me some questions why I feel this way and why I blog every day for the innocents of our world that have been tortured by the men who are the Honored & Respected???The word SHAME is too good for these jackyls.They[THE CLERGY CHILD MOLESTERS] have committed the UNFORGIVABLE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT! NO FORGIVNESS FOR THIS SIN. THAT’S OLD & NEW TESTAMENT.
44. bebo | 04.06.09
alas, the Globe has been getting thinner and thinner - and we all sorry for that.
45. Mike B. | 04.06.09
The death of newspapers can be traced to moronic management. Companies like Gatehouse Media/Morris Communications that put blow-hard publishers and out-of-touch editors at the top of the food chain are getting exactly what they deserve. Most of these clowns wouldn’t know a story if it hit them in their usually ample rear ends.
46. Steve | 07.29.09
People still read newspapers?
Why wait until tomorrow when you can get the today’s news on the internet today?
Why settle for a lefty (or a righty) slant to your news when you can get both viewpoints (and hopefully a few unbiased ones) on the web and make an informed opinion for yourself?
Why listen to the rantings of some stodgy old coot who hasn’t had an original thought since the first Bush administration and thinks everyone under 30 is a slack-jawed moron?
In 30 years, the only place you will be able to find a newspaper is in a museum display case, right next to the rotary phones and buggy whips.
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1. dub | 04.04.09
“Crisis” in journalism = laughable.
These so called “journalists” that have been doing little more than parroting the party line and pushing agendas for the last hundred years are now in a “crisis”? That’s the rough equivalent of naming the death of vaudeville a “crisis”.
Thank goodness this profit model is dying, the world is better off for the lack of banalities and trivial dribble that has been peddled for “news”.