I am very annoyed by the Sling TV ads where the poor newspaper delivery guy on a bicycle keeps getting his morning deliveries tossed back at him to the point he falls off the bike.
Just watch any television program, and you’ll see them referring to The New York Times, Washington Post and other newspapers as part of their on-air reporting. Look who from print enterprises appear on their panels.
Newspapers closing rapidly
Since 2005 more than 3,200 newspapers have closed, down from 5,591 that year, and the current rate is 3.5 per week. The industry has lost one-third of its newspapers and two-third of its journalists. Now, why is that?
No mystery, the Internet
Of course, it’s the web, the Internet, social media and, I think in many ways, just a downright laziness on the part of people of voting age.
My family got 6 dailies
My dad subscribed to six daily newspapers as I was growing up — two from St. Joseph, Missouri; two from Kansas City; and two from St. Louis. BUT my dad read avidly and was a weekly newspaper editor. He also read the Congressional Record (the proceedings of Congress mailed out daily).
I get 3 dailies
I followed in Papa’s footsteps and have spent my life in journalism. But I rarely have my hands on a printed newspaper today. Yet I subscribe to The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and I pick up or read online our two weekly newspapers in the county. I spend about two hours a day with television news too. ABC is my favorite, though I like CBS and NBC, too. I watch CNN and MSNBC, occasionally Fox (which is entertainment and not news), and PBS is my favorite.
My communication students
My students at the University of Phoenix online typically do not read newspapers either. And most don’t trust mainstream television media either. Usually one or two of each 25 student Communication majors say they read newspapers online, while most rely on friends and social media. And this is scary.
Fareed Zakaria
Fareed Zakaria said on his Sunday show this week that, generally speaking, those who use vetted, edited, fact-checked news vote Democrat; those who don’t use reliable news vote GOP. Wow! And look what we have.
Who invests in reporting?
I think much of network television does a decent job of spreading out reporters around the world to gather breaking news. But who does the investigative work? It’s The New York Times and Post, though the Post has been hobbled now by Jeff Bezos’ foolhardy clampdown on the opinions pages. And unless the Post bleeds too much money due to Bezos’ policies and Internet competition, it should remain a robust member of the Fourth Estate. But 300,000 subscribers have left the Post, as have many wonderful staff members.
We need this reporting; we don’t need Sling!
So, let’s all at least applaud the efforts of the nation’s surviving newspapers. And I urge you to support them where you can. We cannot run a democratic republic on seat-of-the-pants content on Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, etc. And Sling, you show your readers to be rude and unfeeling. If the reader no longer wants a subscription, let’s not take it our on the delivery guy! At a minimum, Sling should change its commercial.