
I dropped our subscription to the NYT’s, because I (we) felt they were conducting what amounted to a smear campaign against Joe Biden, which in turn, was helping DJT. Also, my friend and former colleague Dean Baquet, had left the paper, which appeared to coincide with its diminished front page political coverage. And, $500 a year for digital and a hard copy on Sunday, felt a little steep.
Without the NYT’s, we still had the LAT’s and the WaPo to rely on. We went digital on both and have been getting a hard copy of the WaPo on Sunday, replacing the NYT’s. However, now comes the continuing behavior of Bezos and Soon, apparently bending their knees for Trump, resulting in what appears to be an exodus of excellent journalists like Matea Gold, leaving both those papers. My former colleague, Matea, is moving from the WaPo over to the NYT’s.
After Soon did an interview proving he knows nothing about Journalism, we canceled our subscription to the LAT’s. I then renewed our digital subscription with the NYT’s, leaving us with digital subscriptions to the NYT’s and the WaPo and a hard copy of the WaPo on Sundays.
Considering what’s happening at the WaPo, I’m gonna drop them, I think, which will leave me (us) with nothing but the NYT’s digital edition. Which appears to be all we have left. The NYT’s and the AP, Reuters and that’s it?
Print is where our news comes from after all, what we used to call “shoeleather” journalism. AKA, the truth, as opposed to relying on the lies and half-truths of corporate and government handouts. And if the NYT’s goes under – how many of us can afford $500 a yr for the Sunday paper – then what’s left? Local tv news? Most of them don’t even know how to do a follo, much less what a follo is or how to follow up on a question someone from another outlet asked but the guy at the lectern is still refusing to answer.
I swear to God, in my local market, the broadcast outlets just keep reporting out the same old story without advancing it at all. I don’t think they were ever taught that it’s their job to advance a story or at least explain why it can’t be advanced because someone, usually some government wonk, it putting roadblocks in your way. It’s not necessarily their fault, it’s just that the news business has changed, and to a degree, those in it are forced to accommodate the changes or they’ll lose their jobs.
There are still a lot of great people in the news business, trying their best to put out a decent product. But by in large it would appear that for the most part our old credo of “Afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted” appears to be dead and gone. Except maybe, for the NYT’s and a few locals, like the Baltimore Banner online, to which I subscribe.
It’s accepted as fact, that one of the first targets of an invading force is the media. An invading army has to capture the media to control the minds of the populace in order to control and contain the country. Keep people in the dark and you can do almost anything.
And so, welcome to our new America, with billionaire newspaper owners bowing down to he who would be king and firing anybody that won’t do the same – leaving me (us?) with nothing but the digital edition of the NYT’s and maybe a few online outlets like the Baltimore Banner, but it’s difficult to see how they will be economically sustainable with nothing but online revenue.