A recently released report from Northwestern University “found the decline in the number of local newspapers nationwide has accelerated. A key takeaway from Medill’s annual ‘State of Local News Project’ is that since 2005, there have been 2,900 newspapers that have stopped. There are now approximately 6,000 newspapers remaining with most of them (4,790), weeklies. In 2005 there were 8,891 newspapers. In the early 20th century. there had been about 24,000 newspapers in the U.S.” Six companies control 90% of the media in the United States. They operate with only one consideration, maximum profit. The traditional function of media in democracy from Benjamin Franklin until the 1980s, to be the Fourth Estate, the investigator for and chronicler of the people is of interest only if it increases profits. If you were designing a media to support democracy would it be devoting most of its coverage to Donald Trump?
Employees of the Washington Post picket near an oversized inflatable rat outside the company’s offices in downtown Washington, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023. Dozens of employees joined the protest on Thursday as hundreds of Washington Post workers were expected to walk off the job amid a one-day strike over labor issues. Credit: Mark Schiefelbein / AP
About 750 members of the Washington Post Guild staged a one-day strike against the paper on Thursday to publicize their position that management is not bargaining with them in good faith. Staffers who picketed were joined by Scabby the Rat, and many Post reporters withheld their bylines from the paper’s Thursday and Friday editions in protest.
The mini-strikers may not have imagined that their direct action would force the Jeff Bezos-owned paper to submit to their demands. Few, if any, subscribers will notice or care that bylines were withheld, nor will many be moved by the fact that the Friday edition seemed fattened with what appeared to be staff stories that had been banked. The true purpose of […]
Albus Eddie
on Tuesday, December 12, 2023 at 5:29 am
This is why many of us support private subscription journalists. The legacy media hates this. I still subscribe to a few papers, and it may be that weekly papers will be a part of resurgence, but I am doubtful. The core of this started with Ronald Reagan. There are few papers left worthy of the name.
Albus Eddie
on Tuesday, December 12, 2023 at 5:31 am
Let us not forget that a symbol of journalism continues to be imprisoned in Belmarsh prison at the behest of the United States. What else do you need to know?
This is why many of us support private subscription journalists. The legacy media hates this. I still subscribe to a few papers, and it may be that weekly papers will be a part of resurgence, but I am doubtful. The core of this started with Ronald Reagan. There are few papers left worthy of the name.
Let us not forget that a symbol of journalism continues to be imprisoned in Belmarsh prison at the behest of the United States. What else do you need to know?