"The News About the News Business Is Getting Grimmer"

[vchimpanzee]

A suburb of Charlotte has over 100,000 people and its newspaper, which was formed by the merger of two smaller papers, now prints three times a week.

There was an AM radio station but it was taken over by a successful local station in a nearby town and began simulcasting, with news from both locations. But the decision was made to focus on the town where the station was in the first place, so the simulcast ended, and the AM station is silent, with the translator sold to one of the Christian broadcasters.

 

[davideduardo]

Theres a local desert in many places

More than that, many people only look for or read items of interest to them. So they miss the stories about Muslim fundamentalists in Sub-Saharan Africa and the droughts in Australia and the population decrease in Japan and stories that just don't seem to affect them.

When the old farts all watched Huntley and Brinkley and watched Johnnie Carson for the humorous commentary, everyone was on the same page. But today, so much news is seen just in areas of personal interest, the knowledge of many domestic issues and most foreign ones is dismal.

And I'm tired of being asked if my kids born in Puerto Rico had gotten U.S. citizenship yet.

 

[CTListener]

More than that, many people only look for or read items of interest to them. So they miss the stories about Muslim fundamentalists in Sub-Saharan Africa and the droughts in Australia and the population decrease in Japan and stories that just don't seem to affect them.

When the old farts all watched Huntley and Brinkley and watched Johnnie Carson for the humorous commentary, everyone was on the same page. But today, so much news is seen just in areas of personal interest, the knowledge of many domestic issues and most foreign ones is dismal.

And I'm tired of being asked if my kids born in Puerto Rico had gotten U.S. citizenship yet.

You ought to update those people on your kids' status in your annual Christmas email.

 

[TheBigA]

And I'm tired of being asked if my kids born in Puerto Rico had gotten U.S. citizenship yet.

There's a presidential candidate who, if elected, would gladly sell or trade PR to anyone interested. He would toss in DC too.

As he once said, ''the white house is a dump.''

 

[CTListener]

There's a presidential candidate who, if elected, would gladly sell or trade PR to anyone interested. He would toss in DC too.

As he once said, ''the white house is a dump.''

Wasn't he also willing to swap PR to Denmark for Greenland?

 

[Mark Roberts]

And I'm tired of being asked if my kids born in Puerto Rico had gotten U.S. citizenship yet.

There are people out there who don't know New Mexico is a state, so much so that New Mexico magazine has a recurring feature called One of Our 50 is Missing (link: One Of Our 50 Is Missing) with various anecdotes in that regard. The state license plates have said "New Mexico USA" since 1969. When we were thinking of moving to New Mexico, the possibility of confusion from the geographically ignorant was actually was a concern. Ultimately we ended up in Colorado for more substantial reasons, but still....

When I've had conversations with people in Spain and explained that I spent time in New Mexico, I haven't yet found a person who didn't know where it was.

 

[tall_guy1]

I posted this link on another discussion about the changes in news and media, particularly at SI. I subscribe to a podcast from the NY Times called Hardfork, which did a great job of explaining the recent, and not-so-recent changes in what's considered traditional media:
For anyone interested in media, or is struggling with understanding the changes, give this a listen/watch because these guys hit the nail on the head:

There was always something about Pitchfork I didn't like, despite them liking EDM and indie music. It seemed like kind of a snobby music review site, and some of the reviews from the early days seemed to thumb their noses down at "pedestrian" music tastes. I remember being off put many years ago by it, which is a shame, because it seemed like some of their stuff was up my alley.

 

[davideduardo]

You ought to update those people on your kids' status in your annual Christmas email.

Those Christmas emails are a very gringo cultural item that, fortunately, nobody in my family has acquired. They get filed in the same place in my brain as Facebook photos of what people are eating for lunch.

 

[TheBigA]

Here's a story about newspaper circulation numbers:

Competitive Info: Most Major Newspapers Saw Double-Digit Circulation Declines In Past Year.

While these are trying times for most traditional media, newspapers appear to be suffering at a greater level, according to just-released data from Alliance for Audited Media. Based on circulation

www.insideradio.com

 

[Mark Roberts]

At least some publishers saw it coming, but didn't understand the huge difference that internetworking would make. The result is: some things are worse, some things are better. Gift link from the New York Times:

How the Media Industry Keeps Losing the Future

Roger Fidler tried his best, but the excellent business of journalism is gone for good. Can the idea of “news” survive in a digital world?

www.nytimes.com