Oh, wait, the news that newspaper circulation continues to plummet is actually the opposite of gobsmacking.
What is the opposite of gobsmacking anyway? Gobsatisfying? Gobkissing? Gobcarressing?
Also, somebody with trouble getting "it" quoted in the article
"While newspaper marketing practices continue to focus strongly on sustaining the core readership, newspapers are working hard to leverage the brand power of the core product to attract readers to their print and online publications that serve advertisers," said NAA president John Sturm.
So, Mr. Sturm (is his VP Mr. Drang?) feels the problem is marketing based and not, oh I don't know, maybe have something to do with the content being provided.
Might the downturn have something to do with the general non-news status of many of the news articles that get published and the frequent tendency for "news" stories to mix in the worldview of the editors and journalist who some studies have shown come from a narrow elite of liberal groupthinkers?
The papers that are more "just the facts" are doing better than the ones that try and tell you what to think about what they report as they are reporting it.
I have no objection to paper having an editorial outlook, but that outlook should stick to the editorial page, in the actual articles, they shouldn't frequently distort facts to reflect the bias of the newsroom.
That this distortion is finding a smaller audience over time shouldn't surprise anyone, yet few in the industry seem to think that the real problem is the problem, instead they just have to learn how to talk to younger folks better, and somehow better marketing will make all the structural faults that have crept into newsgathering disappear.
Writing better copy would be a start, if the nakedly biased reporting was also good writing then I would probably still read the paper, but on top of being biased the crap that is written is crap, and if I'm going to be insulted, I expect to at least be entertained.
1 comment:
bogsucking
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