This week’s National Journal poll of political bloggers started off by asking them to rank the importance of various media that the political blogger himself uses to stay informed. On both the Right and the Left, “websites/blogs” came in first. However, on the Left, daily print newspapers were second, while on the Right, they were fifth. Print magazines were third on the Left, and last on the Right. For me, the web comes first, and print newspapers (Wall St. Journal, NY Times, Denver Post, and Boulder Daily Camera) are second.
The next question was to give a grade to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. The Left gave him a B-, while the Right voted for D+. I gave him a B, and explained, “He’s said some silly things, but some missteps are inevitable when one talks to the media that much. Overall, he comes across as a likable guy. The failed policies he has to defend aren’t his fault.”
The final question was “Do think it’s a good idea for struggling newspapers to become nonprofits in order to receive tax breaks?” Sixty-nine percent of the Left, but only 16 percent of the Right liked the idea. I thought it was a fine idea, as long as a particular newspaper meets the legal standards to be a non-profit: “Why not? The country is better off with daily print newspapers than without them.”
JohnF says:
Exactly what “tax breaks” do newspapers need? If they aren’t making any money, I assume they don’t have to pay taxes.
Perhaps the tax breaks will be for people who want to support the papers. They could get a deduction for their contribution.
November 22, 2009, 2:34 pmmjohns2 says:
“The country is better off with daily print newspapers than without them.”
If newspapers are struggling because people aren’t buying them, surely the country would be better off without them. People who want news will get it from other sources.
November 22, 2009, 3:06 pmfda says:
ditto to John F’s comment. deduction for contributions will mean that we will, in effect, be allowing tax deductions for some form of political contributions. Even if there are no editorial pages, the political viewpoint will come thru. This is a bad idea, like most ideas having to do with granting tax exemptions for any activity/entity.
November 22, 2009, 3:23 pmOrin Kerr says:
On the other hand, if newspapers are struggling because people are reading them on the Internet rather than buying the paper version, then the other sources and the paper sources are actually the same source.
November 22, 2009, 3:29 pmDavid McCourt says:
“Tax breaks” for enterprises generating no income would soon turn into direct subsidies; either way, another factor helping to further separate and insulate the MSM from the opinions, concerns and attitudes of ordinary Americans is not what is needed.
I think NPR and PBS already provide enough of a “public option” in this area.
November 22, 2009, 4:07 pmyankee says:
Most of the reason newspapers are struggling has to do with declining revenue from classified ads, because craigslist is offering the same service for free. Circulation is down but it’s decidedly secondary.
Also, a lot of those “other sources” tend to be parasitic off newspaper reporting. Bloggers rarely do original reporting, they just link to the newspapers who do. The decline of newspapers mostly leaves original reporting in the hands of TV news, which has lower quality and depth than your better newspapers like the WSJ and the NYT.
It seems the WSJ will survive, though. Unlike every other news source they’ve succeeded in putting up a paywall by convincing businesses that it’s worth paying for access.
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November 22, 2009, 5:07 pmjonzyx says:
David,
After clicking on the link, I think you have the positions reversed on the last issue. It appears from the posting that 69% of the Left agree in contrast to only 16% of the Right.
[DK: Thanks. I fixed it.]
November 22, 2009, 7:17 pmgeokstr says:
Please provide a link to some support for this conclusion, that the decline in classified ad revenue, as opposed to general advertising revenue, is the major cause for the decline in total revenue.
November 22, 2009, 9:05 pmA. Zarkov says:
So how come the Wall Street Journal can make money while the New York Times can’t? Obviously the WSJ can charge its print readers and on-line readers while the Times can’t. The Times tried to charge for access to their columnists, but that failed. What a joke. Why would I pay to read Maureen Dowd complaining that she can’t get a date after writing a book with the title “Are Men Necessary?” Is Maureen Dowd necessary? Obviously not. Why would I pay to read Thomas Friedman who has never written an intelligent line of prose in his entire life. Why would anyone want to read the liberal David Brookes pretending to be the in-house conservative, and doing a bad job at it? If I want a distorted picture of economics I can always read Artur Laffer for free instead of paying to read Krugman. Obviously the Times has poor business and editorial judgment. It needs a readership that’s willing to cough up some dough, but I guess those guys are reading the Journal.
Now I guess Obama will want to tax me so he can give money to a newspaper that I and a whole lot of other people don’t want to read. But that’s the way socialism works until you run out of other people’s money.
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November 23, 2009, 9:22 amSarcastro says:
A. Zarkov makes a strong point. Newspapers are failing because they do not agree with A. Zarkov. Until this is remedied, the failures will continue.
November 23, 2009, 11:03 amA. Zarkov says:
All hail Sarcastro marketing genius of the 21st Century. Go get em tiger.
November 23, 2009, 12:15 pmgeokstr says:
This would be my (unsupported) assertion as to why the old-line media of all types, newpapers (except the WSJ), newsmagazines, the broadcast news (except Fox) and even the cable stations (except Fox), are showing major declines in reader/viewership.
Note that only the media that lean more to the right are still showing growth, while every one of those that tilt left are losing ground. Mere coincidence?
SirCastro, it’s not that newspapers (and all other media) that disagree with A. Zarkov are declining simply because they disagree with him, it’s that until the rise of Fox, talk radio, and the internet, tens of millions of people with the philosophical leaning of A. Zarkov (and myself), had nowhere else to go for news except the media that have tilted left since at least the 1950′s. We had no choice but to watch/read ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, PBS, LAT, NYT, WaPo, Time, NewSpeak, etc in order to get any news at all.
I’ll wager that surveys by the old time media will show that their readers/viewers have been tilting more and more left over time. I think that is not because the number of leftists has been increasing, but that the right has found there are finally other sources of news that they think are more reliable and trustworthy because they are closer to their own way of thinking. So the old media are in decline because they’ve lost us as subscribers/viewers, now that we actually have a choice.
Apparently it was OK with the left, and is in fact the reason they think that the media is not biased, when it almost always agreed with them. How could they be biased, right?
This was and still is a center-right country, confirmed by annual objective surveys. But I’m sure it’s just another mere coincidence that the Obama administration and the Dems are looking for side and backdoor methods to impose the “Fairness Doctrine” without calling it that only where it can squelch Fox, talk radio and right-leaning internet blogs. Then we’d have no choice but to go back to being automatons who follow the leftist media.
Or not. Open rebellion might be another option.
November 23, 2009, 12:15 pmJames T. Carrington says:
Rebellion against media? That movie Airheads comes to mind as a template.
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May 10, 2010, 1:15 am