Saturday, October 11, 2008

Why the Internet is not responsible for the decline in printed press subscriptions

I was thinking about this topic for a few days and have come to the realization that the Internet is not solely responsible for the decrease in printed newspaper subscriptions. Why, you ask? Well it is true that more and more people get their news from online sources, and less and less people actually take the time to read non-electronic media on a regular basis, but I have become convinced that the real reason people are less inclined to pay for the printed news page, is because of the decline in journalism. Journalists today (especially of the major newspapers and publications) seem to have a real hard time presenting articles from an unbiased point of view. Not that journalists are supposed to be neutral on every issue, but let's face it people - their viewpoint is no longer even trying to creep into most of the printed articles today - it is probably 75% of the entire content of the article!!! I for one, am not interested in reading liberal viewpoints about the world today and definitely not interested in PAYING for those viewpoints to be delivered to my home. I believe at one point the newspapers were more interested in the truth of their articles than in publicly writing their viewpoints of current events, but I think in this day and age, that has not been the trend. I really think more people would stay with newspaper subscriptions if the subscriptions were actually more factual than opinionated. However, today the average journalists can't restrain him/herself from heavily peppering their articles with bias in one form or another. I just want the facts people! While I don't believe this is the only reason printed newspapers have declined in sales, I do think much of journalism has become a soapbox to promote liberal viewpoints and have ceased being concerned about reporting unbiased facts. So that is my rant. I'm not saying all journalists are this way, it just seems most of the large publications have a good number of the journalists I described above. I invite any comments you may have.

2 comments:

Matt said...

I like the sunday paper for the coupons and dilbert. But I don't read the "paper" part of it. Since when do you read the newspaper?

By the way, this post could use some references to sources backing up your figures and thesis statement. he he.

Paul said...

Well you have a point with the funnies and coupons there may still be a need for the Sunday version. I don't read the paper much - but thought I would rant about the decrease in factual journalism. Kind of ironic that I didn't include any sources or facts in this article.