Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for May 04, 2009

The power of the pen is getting pressed.

Right on Wiley. Too many businesses and politicians (and voters) looking at the short term, and when we finally realize what we are loosing, it is too late.

I come from a very small town and the local papers are the best place for finding out about what’s going on locally. Give me print any day!

The loss of our newspapers is de-pressing.

Newspapers may disappear, so many today can neither read nor write well enough and they lose so much.

Similar to what’s going on with TV news, especially CNN, where viewers are being asked to supply the stories. What has happened to good old fashioned reporting which required hard work and research?

The “Boston Globe” is as much a part of New England as are The Boston Red Sox and Fenway Franks. If the “New York Times” shuts down the “Boston Globe”, I will permanently cancel my “New York Times” internet subscription. Who is on the board at the “New York Times”? What other boards are they on? How much do they make being on each board? Is CEO incest/inbreeding alive and well in Corporate America??? Another point: An ice storm left me without electricity for 11 days; 19 without cable/TV/internet service. Thank God for the newspapers for innumerable reasons!

ejcapulet says:

I come from a very small town and the local papers are the best place for finding out about what’s going on locally. Give me print any day!

but sadly, even some of the small town newspapers are shutting down or going to biweekly editions

Losing local news is sad, but by my count the US lost all pretense of legitimate global and national news reporting about a decade ago, and I don’t recall anybody mourning that. And isn’t that slightly more important?

Actually Guntoting, US newsmedia lost credibility longer-ago than that–as evidenced by the already-oft reference in 1998 of CNN as “Clinton News Network”.

Oh I know, it was bad before, but it really seemed to go down the toilet when Fox decided to go gung-ho infotainment.

This country will always have newspapers! There are many many people who love their papers and they are never going to enjoy a computer the same way. The computer is an excellent supplement to the paper only!

Very Good, Touché!! I can read a newspaper without an internet connection, electricity or batteries. If I drop a newspaper, it might get damp but I don’t have to get it repaired.

As long as the New York Slimes and the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation go under. Maybe the Washington Pist and the LA Slimes, too. Most, if not all, major newspapers, as well as all network & cable news except FNC are nothing but Obama cheerleaders. And that’s a pathetic situation since the US Constitution gives the news a special place in our republic.

, Aliens from Outer Space are behind this. They Control the Vertical, the Horizonal, and most of the Global Media….. Cable, E-Media, Entertainment, and the FCC are firmly in the tenacles of OverLord Rupert, Supreme Commander of the Inter-Galactic Invasion Fleets…..

Only Captain Eddie and the Kids stand in the way of total mind-control;……..they, of course, have the desided advantage.

. ,

So many liberals are so used to getting the selected news that editors choose to run they don’t realize there are a plethora of alternative sources. When CBS (Dan Rather) and the NYT tried to nudge the election to the Dems by fabricating data it was an independent news source that showed Rather was presenting fake data. You only get the news that fits in with their long term social justice/statism goal.

It truly astounds me. When it comes to politics people seem blind to anything other than their own bias.

As for newspapers, I enjoy reading and holding a paper. I live in a small city of about 70,000. Our newspaper is far from great and it is shrinking as we speak, but it is my only source for local news. I can go on line for national news, but if our paper folds it will really be a loss. There are no other viable sources for passing on local in depth coverage of local events.

Also, there are countries where newspapers still enjoy major circulation (India, UK, …)–a copy of London Times is much better than any US paper, even for coverage of US news than one of any US-based paper.

“Personally, I’m sick of the “liberal media bias” meme. It’s disingenuous and it’s inaccurate.”

There are now only 5 newspapers that have a full time staff in Washington DC. The editorial board of four of them “endorsed” Obama and one made no endorsement. After the 2004 election a poll showed 92% of full time political reporters where Democrats. If you don’t believe there is a liberal media bias name one national news source other than Fox that skews conservative. Your choices are from NYT, WP, LAT, CBS, NBC, ABC, Time, Newsweek and Murdock. It doesn’t really matter if the editor of your Hometown Daily Bugle is a Republican that is not where the public gets its news.

to the cable news channels of course :)

It gets to where a person cannot earn a dishonest dollar anymore.

@BirishB, the other side of that is that the media give the people what sells, so there must be plenty of people who want to be entertained “with loud, screaming voices rather than inform[ed]…with facts.” Or endless dirt on “celebrities” whose main fame seems to be based on being famous, and so on. We get the media we deserve, just as representative states get the governments the people deserve.

There is appreciable irony in the fact that some folks (ahem … ^) tout their own desire to get more informed, but then denounce others for going “on and on” with an informed opinion.

“After the 2004 election a poll showed 92% of full time political reporters where Democrats.”

As if the political persuasion of the reporters were a gauge of how skewed a news source is…

Let’s look at the actual CONTENT this time:

From the primaries to the election: Obama: 72% news stories negative McCain: 57% news stories negative

The environmentalists must be happy – fewer newspapers = more trees.

You know this whole business about hating a commenter because their opinion differs from your own is so proving my point about being biased. Why can’t a person disagree with someone’s comment. It isn’t threatening you. It doesn’t diminish your comment. It simply presents another side. If a person can’t stand to be challenged, it shows a lack of selfl-confidence.

I love you, Cleokaya. (Oh, gosh…that’s just the flip side of the coin we were talking about, isn’t it? D’oh!)

@cleokaya, in my experience, that sort of attitude often comes when we know that we are right and consistent in all our ideas. In that case, anyone who disagrees with us is stupid or evil, if not both, and worthy of hatred in either case. (For examples, consider the partisans in politics.)

It takes a bigger person to admit that we may be wrong, or even that we both may be right, just having different values and starting points. Then we might have to actually listen to the other person and (horrors!) be open to change.

GNWachs: The Washington Post has a rather conservative editorial board these days, Ben Bradlee hasn’t been running the paper for a long time now. The LA Times is part of Tribune Company, which is conservative. Murdoch has a lot of voices out there between print and television. Most of radio news has a very conservative slant. And the cherry on the top is the right-wing editorial slant of the Associated Press (see: Ron Fournier), which appears in most every paper nationwide. The never-ending whining about “liberal media bias” is the true canard - although I can appreciate that the conservatives “got nothin’” at this point, so what else are you going to do, right?

And oh yes, concerning the strip today, I think we’ll get by without newspapers (sorry, cartoonists).. with the exception of investigative reporting - I’m not sure that blogging and boutique online news operations are going to be able to pick up the slack on keeping government and business honest.

BirishB, I used to have a lot of respect for what you had to say…. as of today, however I have none. pookid, i think you have chosen a great name for yourself. Now will both of you take your $%^# slinging back to SOTU where it is more appropriate. …………………………. Edited/corrected. Yes I did Margueritem. thank you so much for catching my erroneous name assignment.

JonD17: I think that you meant BirishB, not bmonk.

I am sure you have pookid.