Regarding Gannett's plans to slash an additional 10% of its newspaper workforce, a reader says in a comment:
Quote:

"One of the things we really ought to be talking about is the real problem we're going to have in this country real soon -- a weak news media that does not have the resources to investigate stories and hold governments and corporations accountable. "I know we are all (rightly) concerned about paying our bills, but if I were a politician or CEO I'd be jumping for joy right now. Fewer reporters making fewer inquiries into what I do. And since all these lost reporting and editing jobs are not shifting to other media (like the Web), we're headed for the first age in America (in a long time) to feature such a weak media. "And please don't tell me that Blogger Susie Q is going to do a quality job of reporting, or that crowd sourcing will pick up the slack. I read a bunch of local bloggers who cover the county I live in, and without exception their content is c-r-a-p. It is poorly written, devoid of context, alarmingly incomplete and rife with their own opinions. This is the real tragedy of this mess: An America that's more primed than ever to be without one of its most important institutions."

Opinions on this?

Pegg, real journalism is a rarity now, and plenty of people are happy that they don't have to withstand any investigation.

Look at how fast and loose the media is now... for example, just a couple of weeks ago someone dug up an extra old report of low profits for a well known company, it got picked up by all the wires with no verification and the company's stock dropped like a rock.  Fake news, real consequences.

It's all truned into McNews, they simply link to each other and assume everything that is reported has already been vetted.

It's not the end of the worls though.  I have lived through a couple of industries that went 'away'.  I had to adapt, learn something new and move on to something else.  

You are young, you're not hostage to your industry.  I know because I've seen your resume and you are going to be fine.  Let's make sure you get planted in a better position and FAST.

Um, Redd, the news media started to loose it's credibility back in the 60's and has gotten worse year by year.  There is no such thing as unbiased news any more.  This is why I read from the left and the right newspapers and try and disect out the truth.  

When you have the NYT fabricating stories to sell what they think people want to hear or to slant the truth you have a real problem!  

Same thing happened to the USA school system.  They both have been eaten alive from within.

-P.

Thanks for calling this 40+ gray haired old woman "Young" Shawn.  ;D

Media and reporting isn't perfect, I know this.  But when there is no one left to investigate the AIG's of the world, or other corporate corruption, or the abuse of local politicians and their families of the public offices, then the corruptions we see at the highest levels will become the mainstream practice of everyday mainstreet America.

Welcome to the days of Mad Max everybody.  Even the Cops will be corrupt, (which has been a local issue for 2 years now and it STILL isn't resolved.)

IMHO (and I do mean the humble part) news media is killing itself. I hear a lot about web based news being the culprit, but that is only a small part of it.

Roughly half of the people in this country TEND to lean toward the conservative and roughly half TEND to lean toward the liberal side. Both sides are pretty well fed up with the lack of honest, unbiased investigative reporting - so they are cancelling subscriptions and tuning out.

How many people do you know that don't get a daily paper or weekly news magazine anymore because they are sick of the slant? I know a lot - myself included!

A business can't survive by pissing off roughly 1/2 of their customer base - nor can an entire industry........

I have to agree with Redd's initial post.

A few years ago, I had to subsribe to a second newspaper as my local is a little to the right of Louis XIV. Any paper that has Michelle Malkin as a regular columnist.......well you get the idea.

I believe that big business is largely responsible for dumbing down news. Everything is money......lots of money. Very few papers have international bureaus and things aren't getting better. Like cable news, small papers have dumbed down because good reporting takes time, money, and ruffles feathers.......oops...can't have that.

Charlie

Well, with advertising paying the way, ratings rule.

I think the truth is that not many people WANT the truth. They would rather know what Britteny is doing. Lets face it, it doesn't appear to the average US citizen that the truth matters.

Look at politics. Politicans have always lied. In the past they actually cared if it was believeable or not. They put effort into lying. Look at the past administration and both of the major party candidates today. They don't even care to put the effort in to lying. It is just too much trouble for what it is worth. Just don't answer any questions and the problem, even if it is huge and obvious to 90% of Americans, will just go away as people lose interest. Look at William J Clinton - did he rally forget he had sex with an intern? Look at W - did he really forget he got arrestd for DUI? I don't think so.

The problem is way worse than it appears. First we'd have to get people to care they are being lied to THEN fix the faulty reporting going on.

Until we start "smartin' UP" our kids in Public Schools instead of "dummin' 'em DOWN" we're not going to see a change. We're at the very bottom of the world's education system and not getting any better.

We've put so many PC rules on our teachers that they can't teach any more - they're glorified "babysitters" and our kids have been suffering for years. They graduate from school being able to read comic books if they're lucky - is it a wonder that THEY don't CARE about the news?

Until the education system in this country is FIXED, the news media will never be held accountable and they'll just go on "entertaining" us and we'll keep on buying whatever their sponsors keep peddling cause we've been dumbed down to the point of being that lazy and apathetic.

WE THE PEOPLE don't deserve the truth - we don't demand it.

Hugs BD

BarbaraD wrote on Nov 2^nd, 2008 at 3:42am:

Until we start "smartin' UP" our kids in Public Schools instead of "dummin' 'em DOWN" we're not going to see a change. We're at the very bottom of the world's education system and not getting any better. We've put so many PC rules on our teachers that they can't teach any more - they're glorified "babysitters" and our kids have been suffering for years. They graduate from school being able to read comic books if they're lucky - is it a wonder that THEY don't CARE about the news? Until the education system in this country is FIXED, the news media will never be held accountable and they'll just go on "entertaining" us and we'll keep on buying whatever their sponsors keep peddling cause we've been dumbed down to the point of being that lazy and apathetic. WE THE PEOPLE don't deserve the truth - we don't demand it. Hugs BD

BINGO!

You hit the nail on the head.  Possibly one reason the "media" is failing is because todays new, young journalism majors are uneducated in real journalism.  They don't know how to get to the truth and they aren't interested in finding out the truth.

Sad.

I read several papers (mostly online), and I watch ALL the news networks trying to get to the truth on my own.  The truth is there, but it's somewhere in the middle of everything you see and read.

Sandy