[NU Sports] FW: re: decimated Chi. Trib. sports staff

Fri Apr 24 08:42:33 CDT 2009

I am afraid that the "dumbing down" of America has hit newspapers the  
hardest, some good publications, the Economist being my favorite, still get good 
 readership, but bad business decisions and a lack of outrage at real 
political  scandal (Iraq torture not Monica or Spitzer), and little interest in 
real news  (not Casey Anthony) has caused newspapers to lose their edge.   
Here in Orlando our best sports columnist just quit but before he did he had 
his  annual thoroughbred naming contest, my entry was for laid off Chicago 
newspaper  employees, "toZellandBlack"

Peace  

and  Love  

In a message dated 4/24/2009 8:46:54 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
rstetson at capps-assoc.com writes:

Anyone  who saw the "Pearls before Swine" comic strip the other day,  
http://comics.com/pearls_before_swine/2009-04-20
saw one of the  problems facing big traditional media.

Much of the political talk has  drifted over to the web - The Politico seems
to be the major source of news  around the DC area, not the Post. Matt 
Drudge
- you can love him or hate  him - seems to provide an index to things
happening around the US, altho I  sometimes question the importance he hangs
on some stories.

I can  safely say that while I look at the sports pages of our two Gannet
papers  here on the shore, its more to see if my stories on baseball and
softball  have made the late editions, not to read the politically inspired
worship  of politicians on the front, besides, both local dailies have
excellent web  sites which let you scan thru many more local stories 
faster. 

One  scary observation: there was a survey that showed that most of the  
18-25
audience got most of their news from Comedy Central. 

Even the  commander of the forces in Bagdad has a Facebook site to put out
his  thoughts on what's happening in Iraq! The Blog has become the primary
way  for anyone with an opinion and a computer to put out his or her  
thoughts
without checking references or reading history. 

My father  still gets the Wilmington, DE newspaper and reads it every 
morning
before  breakfast. At 90 it is hard to break a habit born back in the 20's,
when  everyone read a couple of newspapers before work. As a child, we got  
3
daily newspapers at home - The Daily News, the Herald Tribune, and  Newsday 
-
and I usually scanned all of them before and after  school.

Of my 3 sons, my youngest probably reads the local weekly when  there's a
local sports story he's interested in, otherwise, its Sports  Center on 
ESPN.
My other two get their news from the radio, during their  commutes and off
the internet.

It’s a shame the newspaper biz has  slid to the levels it has, and
(unfortunately) where it is going. Politico  started up after the Washington
Post started cutting jobs. It now appears  to be "the" source around DC for
political news because the guys writing it  picked up where they were prior
to the Post's decision to cut reporters.  

National TV news will be next, with the local news outlets chopping  length
of stories, and ignoring anything that can't be told in a minute.  Sites 
like
You-Tube could become the primary source of news with video from  cell 
phones
as the primary medium.

The local weekly newspapers are  surviving as vehicles for distributing 
color
inserts and with stories about  neighborhoods and sports.  

What we wind up with here is a general  population who has been trained to
think in :30 second sound bites, not the  full story. It’s a great
opportunity for anyone with a political bent to  spread their personal 
biases
to, in some cases, a large group of  people.

Some of us think that has already happened, and that is one  reason for the
shrinking circulation of the printed news medium. I'll leave  that analysis
to the media wizards.

I just remember a comment from  the General Manager of the 500 daytimer in
Moberly, Missouri, that first  billed over a million bucks a year - "You can
have the microphones, and the  remote gear, and all the extra stuff if you
can get the advertising to pay  for it."

When I first started in Radio, many broadcasters predicted the  demise of 
the
big newspapers because there were more effective advertising  media
available. It only took 30 years for that to happen. 

rsl  

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roy S. Lamberton -  Senior Associate & Unix Guru.
Computer Applications & Support  Associates
-------------------- Also ----------------------
Publisher:  Purple Reign (Scout.com/Fox Sports)
Commissioner Delaware American Legion  Baseball
Retired Senior Chief Cryptologic Technician [R]
Northwestern  University - Sp 1974 - 
Chi Phi: Pi74, KD68
==========  Go Cats  -  Beat 'em All  ===========
A Few Basic Truths:
You  cannot Legislate Morality
You cannot Litigate Peace
You  cannot Tax yourself to Prosperity
Wealth transfer makes everyone  poorer
It's all been tried, and failed  before.
================================================

-----Original  Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com  [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of Weinbaum, Willie
Sent:  Thursday, April 23, 2009 4:25 PM
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: [NU  Sports] FW: re: decimated Chi. Trib. sports  staff

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