The big news here is that the media is dying. And in its desperation, its members are seeking survival strategies. Reporters are unionizing at an unprecedented pace in a futile effort at surviving the rounds of consolidations and layoffs. That strategy didn’t save anyone at Gawker, Al Jazeera America or the Huffington Post. Unions can’t save a bad business model that takes entire companies down with it.
The Media Died Last Week
If the media falls with no one to report it, does it make a sound?
Long article, but well worth it with your Sunday morning coffee. Slinging poo and lying at over half your customers with every edition is not a smart business strategy.
I visited the Newseum a few years ago. it was basically a gigantic I-love-me wall, but parts of it were interesting, and the 9/11 display was so moving I had to leave. (I also liked the section of the Berlin Wall and the Stasi watchtower. I don’t know why it was there, but I liked it.) Another part I liked was the display about a Phoenix reporter who was blown up in his car while investigating political corruption. Some reporters really do do good work and suffer for it.
I’m not happy it folded; it wasn’t really the left-wing pit a lot of people are saying it was. I thought it was worth the trip.
I lived 2 miles, towards Dupont Circle, from the Newseum when it opened in the Clinton era. Never went there. All of DC area is based on big government and accompanying journo leaches sucking the blood out of proles. My hope would be people now are truly seeing the government industry for what it really is, Eff them.
The article does briefly cover one of the structural reasons the MSM is, if not dead, is smelling funny: far too much of their work is just regurgitating press releases from special interest groups or big companies.
They’re ignorant, and lazy, and try to cover it with large doses of politically correct virtue signaling.
Great article, and thanks for the post, Miguel!
There was one line that stood out for me:
“Politicians, never mind PR hacks …, once respected and feared journalists. Then they [the journalists] became the unpaid ideological errand boys and girls…”
I hope that they don’t drag this out and the old-guard media dies swiftly.
I don’t know anyone who reads the mainstream press or watches TV news. I get most of my news from blogs and podcasts, with a smattering of google searches and Wikipedia.
My first stop of the day is gunfreezone.net!