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The New York Times and Liberal Arrogance
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Harrison
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bill kellor darfur Financial Times Liberals Media Bias new york times nytimes usa today wall street journal
The NYTimes as important as Darfur?
As if there needed to be another reason to not take the New York Times seriously. In a recent speech at Stanford University, New York times Executive Editor Bill Kellor said:
“Saving the New York Times now ranks with saving Darfur as a high-minded cause.”
Let’s see… the true death toll in Darfur is not known but it has been estimated to be between 200,000 and 400,000 people. The New York Times’ circulation, as of February 2009 stood at 1,627,062, placing them 3rd behind USA Today and the Wall Street Journal.
Imagine, for a moment, that the head of Fox News made a similar comment… do you think it would be repeated in every media outlet in the country? Not surprisingly, Keller’s comment was not widely reported.
As a former subscriber to the New York Times I can say that I canceled my subscription because it became too tiring to read between the lines, deal with editorial comments in the hard news section, and rationalize my monetary support for a paper that did not give fair coverage to both sides of an issue.
I now subscribe to the Financial Times of London, for which I pay double what I paid to get the NYTimes, and enjoy it much more. The FT is not a perfect paper but the differing views (Left and Right) are welcome.
I think the real reason that paper (along with the Boston Globe, which they own) is going down the toilet is because they are biased and people are getting tired of it. USA Today, which strives to cut out the editorialization has seen subscription gains as has the Wall Street Journal since News Corp. bought them.
This latest comment by one of the top people at the Times shows their arrogance. Let them fail, maybe they will learn something.
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07:44
I cancelled my Times subscription years ago for the same reason. The newspaper business model is becoming more obsolete every day. Of course the New York Times’ problems are illustrative of the liberal mindset. Ideology supersedes economic survival. Unfortunately, our country seems to be following down this path.
Burro’s last blog post..Obama and Turkey: A little taste of Stratfor
09:33
There’s tons of liberals out there. If the Times was so liberal that only liberals read it, it would still do OK.
Problem is online news, and no newspaper can figure that one out yet.
Brian Anderson’s last blog post..The debate over Cuba
09:42
This does not explain the growth of USA Today or the Wall Street Journal.
11:51
It also doesn’t help for newspapers that their advertising model is ridiculously inefficient. Compared to the PPC and affiliate models that the internet enables, where advertisers only pay for performance instead of presence, newspapers can’t seem to adapt. From a business owner’s perspective where I have actually paid to do newspaper advertising, I can get the same conversion rates and traffic to my business for a fraction of the cost. In addition I can electronically maintain my relationship with those customers afterwards. I’ll never advertise in newspapers again. The time and effort it takes to create an effective ad and track its performance is too much and the cost is ridiculous.
In defense of Harrison’s point, why is it that media outlets that target balanced or conservative audiences tend to do fine? Liberal outlets are either going under or have to be bankrolled by people like George Soros. Economic success is not hardwired into the liberal mindset. If it was, you wouldn’t have to see apologists for the failure of the New York Times compare their dismal economic performance to African genocide movements – two entirely different things.
The business of news won’t disappear, but the only way in the future that you will be able to make money from it will be from providing useful, exclusive content that people will pay for.
I imagine there will be a boom some day where those who provide primary source leads to credentialed reporters, will bypass the major news companies and distribute their information for a fee to the social media publishers. Or existing major news companies will develop this model.
E.g. Harrison pays for the right to put a link to a primary source in his blog, if people click on this link, he makes money from his ability to distribute the content. Both owners of the link will make money off of the advertising on their pages. Liberals will probably decry this business model because of all the poor paper boys that will be put out of work.
Burro’s last blog post..Obama and Turkey: A little taste of Stratfor
15:45
WSJ also charges for its online coverage.
Also, who’s going to start a new newspaper? Years ago, papers died and new ones started up. You think Seattle is going to get a new newspaper? Denver? Philadelphia?
Newspapers aren’t doing well – why would anyone want to start, from scratch, a brand new one these days?
Brian Anderson’s last blog post..The debate over Cuba
16:01
All good comments. The WSJ used to charge for content but I’m pretty sure they stopped that.
Even if only 35% (lowball number) of the newspaper reading population is Conservative these papers are not serving these readers and are missing a huge percentage of the population. That’s why I cancelled my NYTimes subscription and why I don’t read the San Francisco Comical.
The point of my post was more to show the Liberal arrogance that exists inside these businesses to illustrate a larger point of how their activism (they would call it “journalistic duty”) is killing their business.
If comparing yourself to Darfur is not a good example I don’t know what is.
Certainly companies such as Craig’s List and eBay have hurt their advertising revenues but this has been going on for at least 5 years. Newsweek took a dramatic turn to the Left with their new editor and saw subscriptions plunge. News organizations such as NBC and CBS have also taken turns to the Left and seen their ratings decrease and MSNBC, the most Left of all the cable news networks has never had an substantial viewership while Fox News beats them all combined.
The weakening economy may have put the nail in the coffin but the mentality of the editors and writers is what dug the grave to begin with, I think.
08:26
” it became too tiring to read between the lines, deal with editorial comments in the hard news section,”
Those two phenomena would seem to be mutually exclusive.
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The Wall Street Journal still has a paid component. Too lucrative to abandon.
It is easier than ever to start up a newspaper if you third-party the printing. The biggest deterrent used to be the cost of a decent press, $10 million just to get in the door. There are a lot of venues around that are eager to job print anyone’s newspaper to get more revenue off that huge, already-existing investment. That takes your costs down to people and newsprint, libel insurance, rent, computers, etc.
08:26
WSJ still has a paid ONLINE component. Sorry.