Comments on: The Fall of the American Press? http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/11/08/the-fall-of-the-american-press/ Conservative and Libertarian Intellectual Philosophy and Politics Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:00:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: George Shadroui http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/11/08/the-fall-of-the-american-press/comment-page-1/#comment-65315 George Shadroui Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:41:39 +0000 http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/11/07/the-fall-of-the-american-press/#comment-65315 thanks for the comment and the interesting take. I would observe that lack of competition is directly related to the consolidation of corporate control, and the media's ideological agenda is mentioned in bullet three. thanks for the comment and the interesting take. I would observe that lack of competition is directly related to the consolidation of corporate control, and the media’s ideological agenda is mentioned in bullet three.

]]> By: Robert W. Stapler http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/11/08/the-fall-of-the-american-press/comment-page-1/#comment-64437 Robert W. Stapler Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:55:15 +0000 http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/11/07/the-fall-of-the-american-press/#comment-64437 I also used to lament people seem to read less, at least less worth reading. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of printed material, however, and if newspapers are feeling a pinch, it is only a measure of how much more people are engaged by the new media. I, certainly, haven’t stopped reading news. If anything, I can and do read more today because I have multiple sources available to me, many of which cost me nothing. I still read the occasional hardcopy newspaper, but I am finding it harder and harder to justify that. The Internet represents the next Gutenberg revolution. When Gutenberg sold his first bible, monastic scribes all over Europe tore out their collective hair and bewailed the death of scholarship. Something was indeed lost. Mostly, they lost a monopoly on knowledge and the reverence that goes with being sole purveyors of the ‘sacred wisdom’. Gutenberg made reading widely available to the middle-classes and, somewhat, even to the poor. This, in turn, triggered the Renaissance and Enlightenment, so what was lost has been more than recompensed. The Internet is making possible a readership to anyone wanting to be heard, and this, too, must lead to some amazing developments. The printing press, through knowledge transfer, not only made possible far more discourse, it spurred enormous innovation, savings, trade, entertainment, art, quality of life improvements, wealth and freedom. If the printing press can do all this, of what will this new miracle make us capable? To me, that is far more exciting than the demise of the newspaper. Two more things should, perhaps, be included in Shadroui’s causes for news-print decline: insufficient competition and pathologic adherence to ideology. Even before the Internet, readership was falling off. Partly, this was, as he says, due to the rise of radio and television; and the relative convenience of those media. However, as the same cannot be said of Internet readership (most of us are reading more, not less), something else must have been happening. Could it be newspapers are stimulating much of their own declining readership? Newspapers have long been advocates of the socialism that has taken over our schools and now passes for education, and defend it almost unconditionally. What liberal newspapers write is parroted in the schools, and vice versa. In order to defend increasingly radical ideas as though the height of reason, newspapers and schools have had to, literally, dumb-down what is and how taught to assure succeeding generations internalize party dogma. Together, they have turned out cadres of people who never learn to think independently, and are made averse to anything which disturbs. This does not make for a readership that invites stimulation; it makes for an audience threatened by it. Yet, even brainwashed, people are not stupid; and if what they are presented invariably fails to stimulate, never varies as to message or content, they loose interest in it. Without sufficient competition, journalism has insularized to the point lightweights like Maureen Dowd and Katie Couric represent the news elite. Add to this the recent consolidation of newspapers into very few hands with no incentive to compete, and we have a surefire formula for killing off interest. I can pretty much assume this gradual decline in quality has put other readers off the way it does me. Internet competition is forcing newspapers to change tactics, and that may turn out the only thing to save newspapers from their own folly. Lastly, I respectfully disagree Rupert Murdoch represents ‘the worst aspect of this trend”, because, at least, he’s adapting with the times. Only in the sense he’s not wasting resources saving a dying dinosaur can he said to be ‘worst’; worst in the eyes those who worship the old way so much they're feeling he's disloyal to their cherished idol perhaps. I know it hurts to let go, but the only constant is change. I also used to lament people seem to read less, at least less worth reading. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of printed material, however, and if newspapers are feeling a pinch, it is only a measure of how much more people are engaged by the new media. I, certainly, haven’t stopped reading news. If anything, I can and do read more today because I have multiple sources available to me, many of which cost me nothing. I still read the occasional hardcopy newspaper, but I am finding it harder and harder to justify that.

The Internet represents the next Gutenberg revolution. When Gutenberg sold his first bible, monastic scribes all over Europe tore out their collective hair and bewailed the death of scholarship. Something was indeed lost. Mostly, they lost a monopoly on knowledge and the reverence that goes with being sole purveyors of the ‘sacred wisdom’. Gutenberg made reading widely available to the middle-classes and, somewhat, even to the poor. This, in turn, triggered the Renaissance and Enlightenment, so what was lost has been more than recompensed. The Internet is making possible a readership to anyone wanting to be heard, and this, too, must lead to some amazing developments. The printing press, through knowledge transfer, not only made possible far more discourse, it spurred enormous innovation, savings, trade, entertainment, art, quality of life improvements, wealth and freedom. If the printing press can do all this, of what will this new miracle make us capable? To me, that is far more exciting than the demise of the newspaper.

Two more things should, perhaps, be included in Shadroui’s causes for news-print decline: insufficient competition and pathologic adherence to ideology. Even before the Internet, readership was falling off. Partly, this was, as he says, due to the rise of radio and television; and the relative convenience of those media. However, as the same cannot be said of Internet readership (most of us are reading more, not less), something else must have been happening. Could it be newspapers are stimulating much of their own declining readership? Newspapers have long been advocates of the socialism that has taken over our schools and now passes for education, and defend it almost unconditionally. What liberal newspapers write is parroted in the schools, and vice versa. In order to defend increasingly radical ideas as though the height of reason, newspapers and schools have had to, literally, dumb-down what is and how taught to assure succeeding generations internalize party dogma. Together, they have turned out cadres of people who never learn to think independently, and are made averse to anything which disturbs. This does not make for a readership that invites stimulation; it makes for an audience threatened by it. Yet, even brainwashed, people are not stupid; and if what they are presented invariably fails to stimulate, never varies as to message or content, they loose interest in it. Without sufficient competition, journalism has insularized to the point lightweights like Maureen Dowd and Katie Couric represent the news elite. Add to this the recent consolidation of newspapers into very few hands with no incentive to compete, and we have a surefire formula for killing off interest. I can pretty much assume this gradual decline in quality has put other readers off the way it does me. Internet competition is forcing newspapers to change tactics, and that may turn out the only thing to save newspapers from their own folly.

Lastly, I respectfully disagree Rupert Murdoch represents ‘the worst aspect of this trend”, because, at least, he’s adapting with the times. Only in the sense he’s not wasting resources saving a dying dinosaur can he said to be ‘worst’; worst in the eyes those who worship the old way so much they’re feeling he’s disloyal to their cherished idol perhaps. I know it hurts to let go, but the only constant is change.

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