Circulation Down

Why is Michael Steele Trying to Split the Tea Parties

2010-02-16T17:02:00.000-08:00

Almost a year ago, I made plans with friends to attend a Tea Party in Conton Ohio. None of us brought signs or had any formal connection with any of the other attendees. I'm not sure the other five people who came with me have had any formal involvement with the Tea Parties since that time, but I know they all agree with the goals of the Tea Parties. Using a Google search, I found the Tea Party Patriots

Daily Jim Sumpter Stupity

2010-02-10T10:22:00.000-08:00

The advantage of being a "syndicated" talk show host with no research staff in 2010 is that you can just browse the internet and read other people's material, and comment on it like they are a REAL talk radio show host The disadvantage of being a "syndicated" talk show host with no research staff in 2010 is that anyone can just browse the internet and read other people's material, and comment on it like they are a REAL talk radio show host. Since it is almost Valentine's day, Sumpter is blabbing about candy and Vermont Teddy Bears and demonstrating his limited understanding of women, and perpetuating stereotypes, and generally pleasuring himself over the air waves. This guy needs to go. He is a blight on conservative radio.

Bad Talk Radio Hosts

2010-02-09T14:41:00.000-08:00

Once each millennium, on the 9th day of the second month of the 10th year, we like to pick some terrible talk radio hosts.

In no particular order, we chose Bob Lonsberry of KNRS "Family Values" radio in Utah, syndicated host Doug Stephan, and "syndicated" host Jim Sumpter.

Lonsberry and Sumpter are just freeloading off the karma of the conservative moment and Stephan is a grumpy old curmudgeon.

Stephan is a sort of a cyst on the ass of conservative talk radio. Take a look at his Web Site and see if you don't think it's the most cream-of-wheat irrelevant talk radio web site you've ever seen. Doug Stephan is basically filler for radio stations that don't want to pay for decent content early in the morning.

And what the %^$& is a "Doug Buck"?

What the %^$& is the "Doug Club"?

Dough Stephan is for retired middle aged ladies who spend their days drawing teddy bears on wal-mart sweat shirts and double checking their crock pots.

Sumpter, on the other hand, is a jackass and an embarrassment to the conservative moment. Visit his Web Site, and catch his web casts, see if you don't agree with me. If you listen long enough, you can probably catch his jealous rantings about anyone more successful than he is.

Finally Lonsberry is just an angry man, albeit in love with himself.

Why attack these guys? Simple. They're bad for talk radio and bad for the conservative moment. They're rude, arrogant, presumptuous, irrelevant bottom feeders who ought to be squished out of their profession to make room for real talent. But otherwise they're ok.

Check back at this location in another thousand years. We'll pick three more broadcast losers.

NY Times, Washington Post, Salt Lake Tribune Cover Up Story of Civil Rights Violations

2009-08-30T14:21:00.000-07:00

This is the big one. This is where history would get robbed, if we had to depend on mainstream media. This is the Rosa Parks story of 2009; and I'm not writing it for readers in the year 2009, but rather for the historians of 2059. This is simply amazing.

As you can see below, a Google News Search on the phrase "This used to be America", brought up only three articles.

At an August 25 2009 town hall meeting in Reston Virginia, Officer Wesley Cheeks asked a man to put down his sign, saying, "If I told you once to take it down and you put it back up, I can charge you with whatever I want to charge you with."

"This used to be America," said the man.

"It ain't no more, OK?" answered Cheeks.

Five days later, August 30 (see the graphic below), a Google News search lists only three articles covering this situation.

As far as the Washington who Rick Holmes really writes for.

Newspapers have so blurred the lines between opinion, fact, columnist, reporter, and blogger.

Here's his column: http://www.wickedlocal.com/watertown/news/lifestyle/columnists/x1194151696/Rick-Holmes-Why-newspapers-are-in-trouble-and-whats-at-stake

He seems like a nice guy, but he's another media insider who doesn't realize that Americans recognize lazy biased journalism, and we pulled the plug on it.

Rick says:

Opinionated writers are easy to find, and a lot of them blog for free. What's expensive is hiring someone to report the facts on which we base our arguments, and if there's no one to pay professionals to do it, we'll only have the facts those with a vested interest want us to have.

Sorry Rick. We figure you do have a vested interest, at least on the national level. Lots of us watched bitterly while CNN, the New York Times, and Boston Globe buried the facts and pitched biased stories at us, until we finally canceled our subscriptions and turned the channel.

Rick says:

A newspaper does more than make money by transmitting information. It builds a healthy community. It connects people to their neighbors. It helps set community priorities and guide public debate. It serves as an invaluable watchdog on government, business and politics.

That's the problem Rick. Newspapers don't even transmit information any more. It's like all the editors and reporters want to do is get home for dinner on time. They don't care about the news -- except the "big news", and we get that in multiplicity, redudantly, from TV, radio, local newspaper and national newspaper.

Rick you want the public to mirror your pro-Newspaper cultural bias. And when we don't mirror your bias you want to cast us as uneducated yokels who are too stupid to appreciate what you have done for us. Did you ever hear of "last ink"? That's the phenomenon, typically in a local newspaper, where the editor orchestrates one or two reasonably factual stories about an issue or political candidate and then pours on the hate juice. It used to be that the candidate's only recourse was to send out his own mailers or just suffer. The internet has changed all that, and we're never going back again.

And here's a guy who got it right.

http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090416.wreynolds0417/BNStory/robColumnsBlogs/home

Great Article by Joe Weisenthal

2009-05-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

The article is titled "You idiot, of course there's going to be a newspaper bailout".

Here's the link:

http://www.businessinsider.com/you-idiot-of-course-theres-going-to-be-a-newspaper-bailout-2009-5

Bernanke's lips are moving. What does this tell us?

2009-05-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

Another Newspaper Columnist who Got it Backwards

2009-05-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

I can't even tell who Rick Holmes really writes for.

Newspapers have so blurred the lines between opinion, fact, columnist, reporter, and blogger.

Here's his column: http://www.wickedlocal.com/watertown/news/lifestyle/columnists/x1194151696/Rick-Holmes-Why-newspapers-are-in-trouble-and-whats-at-stake

He seems like a nice guy, but he's another media insider who doesn't realize that Americans recognize lazy biased journalism, and we pulled the plug on it.

Rick says:

Opinionated writers are easy to find, and a lot of them blog for free. What's expensive is hiring someone to report the facts on which we base our arguments, and if there's no one to pay professionals to do it, we'll only have the facts those with a vested interest want us to have.

Rick says:

A newspaper does more than make money by transmitting information. It builds a healthy community. It connects people to their neighbors. It helps set community priorities and guide public debate. It serves as an invaluable watchdog on government, business and politics.

And here's a guy who got it right.

http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090416.wreynolds0417/BNStory/robColumnsBlogs/home

Things to look at

2009-04-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

Devvy Kidd

http://www.devvy.com/index.html

http://www.newswithviews.com/guest_opinion/guest128.htm

http://centristatheart.blogspot.com/2009/03/rep-sam-rohrer-on-10th-amendment.html

Find the missing attorney generals

2009-04-26T19:18:00.000-07:00

Funny article in the Washington Times -- "States prepare to combat stimulus strings".

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/20/states-cite-10th-amendment-in-effort-to-cut-stimul/

What is so funny about this article?

Well, in the above article, as in many others, a singularly odd phrase keeps cropping up -- "send a message"; and now conservatives are supposedly happy that state legislatures are "sending a message" to Washington D.C. about the tenth amendment, by passing 10th Amendment Resolutions, but that is crazy.

If the Federal Government is in violation of the 10th amendment, should not the states' attorney generals take the Federal Government to court?

Starting with the Civil War, can anyone point to a single historical instance of state legislatures combatting federal incursions by passing resolutions. The anwer is no?

So what the heck is really going on?

If states were serious about asserting the 10th amendment, they'd put their attorney generals on the job, same as when they wanted to get their share of tobacco settlement money and sue microsoft for anti-trust violations.

This is obviously some kind of fence straddling ploy on the part of participating states; and in a large regard it is working, as nobody from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washinton Post, Salt Lake Tribune, or any other major regional daily paper seems to be questioning the irregular approach.

Once again, main stream journalist have abdicated their responsibility to bring these important issues to the attention of the public; instead, preferring to concentrate on off color tea bag sexual innuendos, and whatever else fill air time but requires no research or other journalistic effort..

Two Views of an American Tea Partier

2009-04-22T13:30:00.001-07:00

Last week, nearly 1/2 million Americans held a peaceful demonstration against government spending and higher taxes, which may have had the unintended side effect of triggering a psychotic schism in actress/comedienne Janeane Garofalo.

Garofalo's interpretation of the event seemed to be in sharp contrast to that of other observers who saw saw middle class Americans exercising their first amendment rights in a peaceful demonstration.

". . . Let's, let's be very honest", said former Saturday Night Live cast member Garofalo, ". . . this is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks."



	As seen by Janeane Garofalo		As seen by normal non-psychotic Americans

Garofalo appears to have acted independently -- veteran civil rights leaders Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and NAACP spokespersons were silent about the Tea Party demonstrations.

"I'm a black woman, I'm a Democrat, I attended a Tea Party and I was shocked . . .

2009-04-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

Heard on Sean Hannity 20, April, 2008 from a woman who identified herself as Lorell:

"I'm a black woman, I'm a Democrat, I attended a Tea Party and I was shocked to learn that I am a redneck and a racist."

Lorell went on to say that she wasn't the only non-white at the demonstration, "It was the rainbow tribe with an attitude out there."

Her comments were in response to charges of racism against the tea partiers by actress/comedienne Janeane Garofalo. According to Garofalo:

". . . Let's, let's be very honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats, it's not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about, they don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks. And there is no way around that. And you know you can tell these type of right-wingers anything and they'll believe it except the truth . . ."

Kevin Jackson, of "The Black Sphere" said, "As a black man, I love it when ignorant white women like Janeane Garofalo speak for all blacks. It's thrilling to me that Janeane would take time out of her busy Hollyweird life to protect me and my peeps -- the downtrodden, the oppressed...the lowly Negro."

Read the rest of his comments on Garofalo at the following link:

http://theblacksphere.blogspot.com/2009/04/racist-garofalo-to-rescue.html

Nepolitano Document Resembles Bad UFO Report

2009-04-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

With all the furor surrounding the document titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment", I am surprised nobody had commented on the amateur quality of the writing.

My first impression is that it is either a hoax or it was written by summer interns without adult supervision.

http://video1.washingtontimes.com/video/extremismreport.pdf

To get an idea how badly this document is written think of a UFO "documetary" on the bad science channel, or the way dumb people try to impress Judge Wopner on "People's Court", by using big words and formal sentence structure.

Awkward sententence structure, no facts, mis-used and over-used adjectives, and an air of pompous pseudo-science; or, to be more accurate, pseudo-security.

Here is an example:

Open source reporting of wartime ammunition shortages has likely spurred rightwing extremists—as well as law-abiding Americans—to make bulk purchases of ammunition. These shortages have increased the cost of ammunition, further exacerbating rightwing extremist paranoia and leading to further stockpiling activity. Both rightwing extremists and law-abiding citizens share a belief that rising crime rates attributed to a slumping economy make the purchase of legitimate firearms a wise move at this time.

Weird. "Paranoia" is a psychiatric judgement. "Concern" would sound more professional.

They also use the word(?) "antigovernment". I'm not kidding.

Earning Reports: Score Google-1 News Dinosaurs-0

2009-04-16T20:06:00.000-07:00

History should record the decrepit state of American Newspapers on April 16, 2008. While Google reports "stronger profits", the nation's largest newspaper publisher, Gannett, reported a 60-percent drop in earnings. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd whined that Google should "just write us a big check."

But why should anyone write the New York Times a check?

When Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was nominated for vice-president, all Maureen Dowd could write were sarcastic articles about NASCAR, hunting, and Walmart.

Ironically, Ms. Dowd's column abouit Google is titled "The Dinosaur at the Gate" (referring to Google), which is damn funny but also demonstrates the myopia of northeast journalism. Since the obvious dinosaur is the New York Times.

Miss Dowd is a Pulitzer Prize winner. She has been joined in her derision of average working class Americans by fellow Times columist and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman.

However, most of America has never heard of either one of them. Their influnce is diminishing, along with Times circulation and advertising revenues, and it shouldn't be long before they want a federal bailout too.

The State of Journalism - April 15, 2009

2009-04-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

Does this explain why CNN ratings are in the toilet?

Bend Over, Here it Comes

2009-04-15T15:04:00.000-07:00

An open invitation Tea Party was held in Canton, Ohio, on 15 April 2009.

Many participants expressed displeasure with the changes Barrack Obama and Congress made this year.

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman said the Tea Parties were not a grass roots movement.

Where the hell did he get his Nobel Prize? A box of crackerjacks?

Thanks to Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and Glen Beck, who were kind enough to come over to all our houses and make these nifty signs for us. Not.

http://www.businessandmedia.org/commentary/2009/20090415101007.aspx

Tea Party Words

2009-04-14T22:38:00.001-07:00

Words from Eugene Kane in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/42936817.html

"The tea parties will be political rallies led by folks such as Newt Gingrich and other Republican leaders but will also feature polarizing media figures such as Sean Hannity."

Question. What is wrong with political polarization?

Observe a herd of cows standing in a field. That's about as non-polarized as you can get.

Is this a good thing?

They're all headed for the slaughterhouse.

In modern newspaper columnist language, "polarization" is ipso facto bad, and that's a shame, because the type of polarization referred to by Eugene Kane is really just diversity of political thought, and we thought the media loved diversity. Then again, to stretch the cow analogy, maybe what Mr. Kane is telling us is that all animals are equal, but animals who support President Obama's policies are MORE equal than the rest of us.

Is this a Good Example of why the New York Times is Going Broke?

2009-04-11T17:01:00.000-07:00

Click on the link below to see what a member of the New York Times editorial board wrote about the Northport, Long Island Tea Party:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07tue4.html

The editorial, written by editorial board member Lawrence Downes, presents a negative, very cynical view of the Long Island Tea Party. I don't happen to agree with this editorial, but I support the right of Mr. Downes to write it.

I would also like to note, however, that the New York Times, and similar newspapers, are in deep financial trouble. They are running out of money because people won't buy their printed editions, and people won't pay to suscribe to their online editions, and people are finding cheaper and better places to advertise.

The New York Times is in terribly weak financial condition.

If you read the Downes editorial, you may come to the same conclusion as me, and that is that Mr. Downes doesn't live in the same America as me. He's spent too much time isolated in top floor conference rooms with too many other cynical journalists and editors.

This is a good time to pull the plug on newspapers. A 5% drop in revenue and readership would take many of them over the edge.

April is about to become "Tax Freedom" month but April 15, 2009 should also become Cancel-Your-Newspaper day and more important Pull-Your-Small-Business-Advertising day.

I'd like to put things in perspective. This analogy is for football fans (and everyone else). Long ago, coaching legend Tom Landry told his players not to do the end zone dance for two reasons -- (1) You should never look surprised to be in the end zone; and (2) Never anger your opponents or give them anything to use as motivation.

Therefore . . . accept that "journalists" like Lawrence Downes are going to write negative editorials about Tea Parties (it's not a big deal, he works for a dinosaur newspaper that no one pays attention to anymore). Don't waste your time complaining about negative coverage (a guy like Downes lives for your complaints, he savours them). Just pull the plug on traditional journalism. Cancel your subscription. Pull your advertising. Tell local businesses to do the same. A few more percent loss of circulation and advertising revenue will create a new chapter in the history of many regional daily newspapers -- chapter 11.

It's where they belong.

Next Time Your Newspaper Uses the Word "racist"

2009-04-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

Check to see if it was used correctly.

Here is the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary definition of "racism":

Main Entry: rac·ism

Pronunciation: \ˈrā-ˌsi-zəm\

Function: noun

Date: 1933

1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

2 : racial prejudice or discrimination — rac·ist \-sist also -shist\ noun or adjective

Example of misguided use of the term "racism":

http://2conservativewomen.blogspot.com/2009/02/diane-sawyer-rush-limbaugh-wants-obama.html

Limbaugh -- Newspapers Print Endless Phony Stories

2009-04-10T11:13:00.000-07:00

An ad on the front page of the Los Angeles Times is made to look exactly like a news story. NBC paid for it.

Many journalists expressed anger about the unorthodox use of the Times front page, but radio host Rush Limbaugh expressed a different view.

"Newspapers print endless phoney stories," said Limbaugh. "There's probably more accuracy about the NBC story than there is in your average front page story."

Will History Forget What Happened in Rockford?

2009-04-08T17:17:00.000-07:00

Like most of what we publish, the real point of this post is to ask, "Where were the media?"

The story of what happened to David Hale is a barely discernable ripple in the tide of events that will soon join together to become a raging river on April 15 of this year.

Nonetheless, his story is very important.

David Hale is organizing a TEA Party in Rockford Illinois. That stands for Taxed Enough Already. There hasn't been any violence associated with the Tea Party Movement that sprang up since mid February 2009. It's just a (huge) group of mainly middle class people who are concerned about the future of their country . . . working people . . . small business people . . . people who obey the law.

The trouble started when David and a group of citizens assembled for a planning meeting at the East branch of the Rockford Public Library.

Now East branch Library, like most modern libraries, has a web page, but the page doesn't really say much about meetings.

What the Rockford East Branch web page says:

Located in the former Barnes & Noble building on State St., the new East Branch offers a coffee shop, meeting rooms, free Wi-Fi, quiet study rooms, special areas for children, young adults and adults, and an expanded collection of books and media.

The Rockford Library Policy Manual can be found at the following internet location http://www.rockfordpubliclibrary.org/about/policies/policies.asp .

There's really nothing in the Rockford Library Policy Manual that addresses the question of whether a group of individuals can meet at the library for the purpose of planning an event.

But David Hale and the other Tea Party Organizers were asked to leave the library. In fact, the police were called, and to avoid a confrontation and bad publicity, David and his group left voluntarily.

The Real Question

We think that the real question is this -- where is the news media in all of this?

Tea Party organizers from coast to coast, according to their internet posts, are dealing with questionable government policies and decisions that affect first amendment right of students to peaceably assemble.

In California, Tea Party Organizers were told they could not distribute petitions at their event. But doesn't the first amendment guarantee "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances"?

Should U.S. media document incursions of the First Amendment by local governments?

Did Dr. King deal with similar problems when attempting to organize demonstrations in the early nineteen sixties? Was this documented by the media?

Where is the historical context? Where is Katie Couric to investigate and to compare the treatment of David Hale's group to the treatment of anti-war and gay rights protestors?

Questions for the Rockford Public Library

Is there a rule against people pushing a couple of tables together in the Rockford Library, if they are working on a group project? Where is that rule published? Has that rule ever been enforced before?
Does the Rockford Library distinguish between a group of people meeting together to plan an event and a group of people meeting together to work on a school project, in terms of library usage policies?
Under what circumstances does the Rockford Library call the police?
Under what circumstances does the Rockford Library ask a group of individuals to leave the library?
Were the police called by an employee of the Rockford Library on the night that David Hale and other Tea Party event planners came to East Branch?

What are the real rules?

How do you separate the rhetoric about the second amendment from the actual accepted interpretation?

A good place to start is the First Amendment Center Web page (http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org)

The first Amendment Center has the following to say about freedom to assemble :

As a general rule, the government cannot ban speech — including public protests — because of the protest’s “content,” or subject matter. Government can restrict the time, place and manner of the speech in order to meet a higher need, such as public safety. What a demonstrator might say without challenge at noon in the public square likely would have First Amendment protection, while that same speech at midnight under an apartment building window likely would not.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm. We're wondering if ANY of this is on the radar screen of national media.

Obama Gets A Pass

2009-04-07T17:12:00.000-07:00

"Few people would have predicted that someone like me would one day become an American president," Obama said.

- USA Today, Opinion -

Someone like me?

Is there anyone as the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, or Associated Press who looks at a statement like that critically. Does a "journalist" remain in America who will challenge this rhetoric?

Abraham Lincoln grew up more disadvantaged than Barrack Obama. Whatever does Obama mean?

Maybe Barrack is still stuck on "color of skin", when the rest of America has moved on to "content of character"?

So what does Barrack Obama mean by his chosen phrase, "someone like me"?

Someone who fires the president of General Motors?

Someone who apologizes to the rest of the world for America?

Someone who just used the power of the government to put America's grandchildren's grandchildren in debt?

Or is little Barry Obama still hung up on the color of his skin?

Should Regional Daily Newspapers Survive

2009-04-05T16:34:00.000-07:00

A March 18, 2009 article by John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney in "The Nation" calls for (among other things) a $200.00 tax credit for Americans to encourage them to subscribe to newspapers and thus help to save the "great regionly daily" papers in America.

Why?

What''s really worth rescuing?

What do large regional newspapers do that is so important the government needs to rescue them?

Send your answers to CirculationDown@gmail.com

The Nichols/McChesney article is short (four pages on the internet), but they used the word "crisis" fourteen times in their article.

Analysis of a "crisis"

What's the crisis?

Seriously, Nichols and McChesney are supposed to be "professional" journalists?

The American Heritage Dictionary defines crisis as follows -- "An unstable condition, as in political, social, or economic affairs, involving an impending abrupt or decisive change"

Is this a bad thing?

We don't think the Nichols/McChesney article covered this topic very well, because they didn't really talk about essential functions of regional daily newspapers -- functions that would be difficult or impossible to duplicate?

What is the real job of a newspaper?

We think a newspaper is supposed to gather and distribute news.

So where is the problem? If the New York Times closes its doors, what will happen?

Disagreement with the Nichols McChesney Position

A number of publications, bloggers, and just plain old private citizens disagree with the Nichols/McChesney position. Here are a few.

McClatchy Watch (http://cancelthebee.blogspot.com/) -- This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company.

The Danville Register & Bee - Life at a Media General Newspaper (http://danvilleva.blogspot.com/) -- Life at the Danville Register & Bee...when a male reporter at a Media General newspaper filmed the breasts of local business women without their knowledge or consent and showed the video around the newsroom - several people objected. We were all fired. He was not. This is what happened. I'm one of those journalists who was fired for taking a stand. Why am I writing this? Because.... Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History.

Top 100 Newspapers, Blogs, and Consumer Magazines

2009-03-29T21:16:00.000-07:00

Readers Weigh in on why Newspapers are becoming Extinct

2009-03-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a difference in perception between the people who read the news and the people who write the news.

Readers believe the quality of journalism has declined, and they refuse to purchase or advertise in an inferior prduct.

"Journalists" see their industy as a victim that just needs some government "stimulus" to restore it to its former glory.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?thread=101975&offset=0#post_303534

When journalists turn to poor-mouthing: a manufactured crisis

2009-03-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

This article is about a manufactured crisis.

The Problem

John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney are a couple of "veteran journalists" who wrote about "The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers" the April edition of "The Nation."

Here is the "crisis" Nichols and McChesney are talking about:

Communities across America are suffering through a crisis that could leave a dramatically diminished version of democracy in its wake. It is not the economic meltdown, although the crisis is related to the broader day of reckoning that appears to have arrived.

Ok, so these two veteran journalists/authors say there is a crisis. What's the nature of the crisis? Read on.

Here is what Nichols and McChesney have to say about the quality of journalism in the United State

We do not mean to suggest that '60s journalism was perfect or that we should aim to return there. Even then journalism suffered from a generally agreed-upon professional code that relied far too heavily on official sources to set the news agenda and decide the range of debate in our political culture. That weakness of journalism has been magnified in the era of corporate control, leaving us with a situation most commentators are loath to acknowledge: the quality of journalism in the United States today is dreadful.

So, these gentlemen claim there is a "crisis" in journalism and the reason is that the "quality of journalism in the United States today is dreadful".

Deceptive Logic

I was not so much surprised as I was deeply saddened to see the type of deceptive logic used by Nichols and McChesney to make their case for what will eventually amount to a government takeover of our newspapers.

According to Nichols and McChesney:

The country's great regional dailies -the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer--are in bankruptcy.

WRONG!

The country's great regional dailies are not in bankruptcy.

The country's FORMERLY great regional dailies are in bankruptcy."

I would submit that in making their case to save the nation's "great regional dailies", Nichols and McChesney have demonstrated the type of subtle bias and dishonesty that is the problem with the big regional dailies, and that is the reason people no longer choose to purchase them, or advertise in them them, and is exactly the reason these papers are failing.

The Solution

Here is the solution to the "quality" problem noted by Nichols and McChesney. I think their solution is crazy, because it rewards failure; but here it is.

The Nichols McChesney Solution:

Let's give all Americans an annual tax credit for the first $200 they spend on daily newspapers.

Interview with Robert McChesney

Question: How many news sources were there when the Constitution was signed?

Question: How many news sources are there now?

Basically there are 1000 times as many news sources in 2009 as there were in 1787.

Question: Why are journalists and (some) politicians trying to convince us that there is a "crisis" in the American news industry?

Here is mystery. If American Journalism is "dreadful", as Nichols and McChesney claim, why reward it with incentives like tax credits to preserve it? Why not just let the market kill it off and replace it with something better?