Editorial Roundup: On Newspapers and Democracy, Republicans and Race
As every reader in Blogland already knows, newspapers and democracy are both at risk in Bush's America.
And there is a war going on besides the one's in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a war for the trust of the American people.
As we finish off the last of the morning coffee over here in Locust Forkland, we have a few thoughts on this war for the hearts and minds...
For starters, the editorial page editor at the Seattle Times got the lead story at the number one online outlet for media news this morning, Jim Romenesko's links section at the Poynter Institute down in sunny Florida.
(BTW: I heard a great joke about Florida on cable this weekend. Can't remember who said it, but looking at the state of Florida on a map, doesn't it look like a giant penis ready to spray all over Cuba? Sorry. Back to the column.)
So anyway, the Seattle Times editorial page editor James Vesely wrote, among other silly and print defensive things in this column: The Handoff: Newspapers in the Digital Age.
"I see Craigslist as a negative-editorial product. Why? Because it claims the profits normally shifted to the newsroom. Without the obligations of journalism, e-commerce becomes the anti-newspaper."
My reply to him in e-mail?
"So get innovative and do it better. The people are not going to save print for that reason."
Then, he says: "Media companies, especially newspapers, are by default nearly the lone agents of the democratic form of government."
My reply:
"Not in my part of the world. They are hand and glove with Bush and the GOP destroying democracy and complicit in trying to turn America into a Christian nation with no separation of church and state. The same is true of local TV news stations, corporate monopolies all.
"You are just being defensive trying to save your job. It’s understandable.
"But so is the public’s antipathy toward your print product. I defend more democracy around here than all the Newhouse papers combined."
Then on another subject designed to save another newspaper, Editor and Publisher editor Greg Mitchell wrote an interesting column the other day about a Columnist War at The New York Times.
"The New York Times Op-Ed page hasn’t been this hot in a long time. Now we are experiencing Columnist Wars, with Bob Herbert this week joining in a rapidly escalating battle between Paul Krugman and David Brooks - largely over an incident involving Ronald Reagan at a local fair over 27 years ago."
The "war" continues today with a missive from Paul Krugman headlined: Republicans and Race.
"Over the past few weeks there have been a number of commentaries about Ronald Reagan’s legacy, specifically about whether he exploited the white backlash against the civil rights movement," Krugman writes. "The controversy unfortunately obscures the larger point, which should be undeniable: the central role of this backlash in the rise of the modern conservative movement. The centrality of race - and, in particular, of the switch of Southern whites from overwhelming support of Democrats to overwhelming support of Republicans - is obvious from voting data."
As my regular readers know, we were against the dumb idea to charge for New York Times columnist's posts online from the outset two years ago, but they created the now defunct Times Select anyway. Since most of our readers would not be able to afford to pay for that service, and even the one's who could afford it were not likely to join in that endeaver, we stopped linking to the Times for the most part.
Now that someone up there in Manhattan has seen the light about the FREE free Web Press, we are willing to reconsider and take them under consideration. Also, an editorial writer there who I know personally has done a great job of writing editorials on the Bush Justice Department's political manipulation of justice, especially in the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.
You can follow more on this columnist war from the newly free New York Times Op/Ed section.
All I have to say about it is this. Of course the Republican Party figured out how to use the politics of race to turn the South into a GOP stronghold, just as they used the wedge gay marriage issue in the 2004 election cycle to turn the tide. The very idea that columnist David Brooks would argue with that point just shows it is true what I said about him when he was first hired to replace conservative columnist William Safire. He doesn't know what the fuck he is talking about.
I have written about race and the Republicans many times before. We are glad some of the columnists at the Times have finally figured this out.
I guess with former Times editor and Alabama native Howell Raines gone from the Old Grey Lady, it takes a Princeton economist to point this out in the Internet Age.
Will it rescue the Times and get people reading it online again? We will see...
Comments
Of course, newspapers are about locality, in ways Craig's List is not. That's why out here, the newspapers are seen as anti-war, true liberal and out of touch with the minority of Republicans in Washington. In Seattle the papers are considered part of "corporate journalism." Guess we can't win. But it's localism that holds all but three of our newspapers to their communities, and eventually that has to count more than the hyper-partisanship we are enduring now.
Jim
Posted by: Jim Vesely | November 19, 2007 04:03 PM
Newspapers are about ink and paper and a printing press. Period.
As people read online, all you have to do is beat the blogs, locally, regionally, nationally, internationally.
With your resources, that shouldn't be hard, if you would just get off your ass and do it.
I've worked for a lot of newspapers, including the New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, etc.
But I feel as free as a freebird writing online with no corporate owners or old school editors censoring me.
I think you are all stuck in the mud old school hacks who can't stand the idea that readers might like something besides your staid, style-less copy, totally beholden to corporate advertisers whether you admit it or not. Tell the truth. You are more concerned with losing advertisers than you are with losing readers. True?
The local local argument leads to more coverage of local sports, which to be sure some people will read. I fully expect the Birmingham News to start covering local elementary girls volleyball before long, if they aren't already. But how does that protect democracy? Think about it. Girls volleyball?
I don't know about your newspaper, although I have readers in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, but the papers around here and the TV news directors seem to think the more Christian and Republican they are, the more isolated they are from the Rush Limbaugh charge of being a "liberal newspaper." They by God get the church readers, to the exclusion of almost everybody else.
The polls show that only 12 percent of the people of Alabama now have confidence in Bush. I reported that. They have not.
They run Bush PR as news. We have literally creamed the shit out of them just by being wide open and willing to report the truth. They are reeling from it and don't seem to know what to do.
The Huntsville Times, another Newhouse rag here, could save itself by hiring a real science and technology reporter. Instead, they have a former sports reporter (a nice guy who is a friend of mine) covering road news, as in updates on the roads that are being worked on this week. BORING!
I am also a former academic who has read the studies on all of this. Most of them are wrong.
It's been great fun beating the crap out of the corporate press, and making money at it too. Of course a lot of my money still comes from free-lancing. I recently had the top story on The Nation magazine Web site.
It totally blew away the Birmingham and Mobile coverage of the Siegelman case, so I gained readers and credibility. They lost both.
Let me ask you a few direct questions. If you honestly want to save American newspapers, give this some honest thought.
What have you personally done lately to save democracy?
Have you written a column exposing the Bush administration's spying program? Have you joined the lawsuit to stop this or even editorialized about it?
Have you exposed the administration's position on torture?
Have you written an editorial calling for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq?
Have you written an editorial calling on Congress to impeach Bush?
The readers are going to bloggers who have been doing these things for years now.
Show some courage, man, and stop bitching about the blogs and blaming your loss of revenue on Craig's List. It's a great example of American capitalism and technology at work.
If you and your bosses had any creativity in you, you could create your own free online classified ads and go after Craig's List. But you just can't figure out how to replace that $1 a line can you?
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November 19, 2007 04:09 PM
Now if we could just get Krugman and Brooks and Herbert in here we might have a fine, full discussion yet...
What about you local reporters? Local politicos? Are you afraid of your own shadow?
Democracy and the press are dying. I would love to help you save both. Ask me a question here. I have some answers...
Posted by: fast2write![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.locustfork.net/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 19, 2007 04:20 PM
Oil men Bush and Cheney have managed to get oil to close at above $97.00 a barrel (an all time high), gold is above $835.00, (25 year high) and the U.S. dollar is at its all time low. There is more Federal money going to civilian mercenaries than to American solders. During the last seven years our borders have been left open, now we have over 14 million illegal immigrants. Every military power in the world has managed to slip spies up through Mexico and across our borders unchallenged.
Bush's bad appointments have been in his own personal interests; he has disregarded his oath to protect and serve the U.S.A.
Good job guys you have made millionaires of your GOP affiliates by awarding big government contracts to their sham organizations at the cost of bringing our country into a recession. You have redefined Democracy, the executive powers, our Judicial system and the role of our National Guards and the Military Reserves.
Alabama is right in the middle of Bush’s corruption. Bush has had to help Bob Riley win both his elections for governor. Slick Bob is being groomed as a potential vice president candidate for the 2008 election. But what about his connection to Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon during the 2002 election. Also, there is another cloud over Riley’s head that involves their conspiracy to eliminate his opponent Don Siegelman in the 2006 election which is starting to get national attention.
By showing no shame and declaring executive privileges the occupants in the white house have become fugitives that are untouchable. Charges can’t be brought against them, because the judicial system works for the executive branch in which the President is the man in charge. Congress has not been able to start an impeachment process because there are very few conservative (honest) Republican’s remaining in Congress who align themselves with the traditional Republican values. Bush’s new group of corrupt politicians are still using the name of the GOP and they still run on the Republican ticket; however, they are aligning themselves on Bush's and Cheney's corruption.
What’s the next move once a new president assumes office? What could possibly be Bush’s plan? How are they going to avoid prosecutions and possibly war crime charges? How are they going to prevent the Feds. from seizing their bank accounts and their assets. Will Bush perform midnight pardons? But, first they have to be charged with a crime to be pardoned. Who then would pardon Bush?
I believe that they have all their eggs in one basket. The new President will have to be a close ally. With so many facing possible prosecutions, I believe that what they did to get Bob Riley elected governor is just an example of what might happen to their presidential opponents.
I believe that Karl Rove has never been debriefed and that he is still using the NSA to do wiretapping to gather whatever information that he needs to eliminate top presidential candidates. I believe that Bush is using the Justice department to investigate all presidential candidates, and that Karl Rove is being given the results of their investigations to be used to blackmail and to generate smear campaign ads. This is the same thing that he and Donal Segretti done for Nixon. Segretti went to prison; however Karl was only twenty one and escaped prosecution. Maybe he won’t be as lucky the next time. If Karl’s tactics fail to get their candidate in the lead, I believe that Bush's and Cheney's crimes are so serious that the leading candidate will be assassinated regardless of whether he or she is a conservative Republican or a Democrat.
Posted by: gopvictims | November 20, 2007 03:23 AM
Some good points; some zany ones. What does that have to do with Newspapers and Democracy, Republicans and Race?
Do you agree that the Republican Party is the defacto racist party? Not that all Republicans are racists, but the racists know which party lever to pull.
And how is the newspaper you are reading doing covering these issues (if you read a newspaper, in print or online)?
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November 20, 2007 08:33 AM