Regarding newspapers, why are they so sacrosanct? The newspaper as we know it today hasn’t been around forever and if something replaces it, so what? I’m sure people missed that buggy-ride into town to pick up a month’s supply of goods at the general store for a while but, time marches on.

I DO subscribe to a local paper, but it’s physically shrinking at an alarming rate (while the price continues to go up). I can remember only one in-depth politically-charged report entirely researched by the paper’s staff, and that was recent (and came as quite a surprise — I didn’t know they had any investigative journalists left).

The first is that the newspaper industry, in which I worked in management up until the late Eighties, pretty well knew the dangers it faced early on. In fact, given it took another two decades to hit full force, top management was pretty much on the mark. This is ironic since absolutely nothing was done to adjust the business model.

The second point is that while I agree political bias as such has not been that much of a factor, something has changed recently. Print (and increasingly broadcast, which also is on the ropes for similar reasons to newspapers) ignores stories such as the ACORN scandal and Van Jones and it drives readers and viewers to sources that report these items. Spiking stories to promote bias has started to hurt, and badly.

Finally, I agree right-of-center readers originally gravitated to right-of-center on line sources. That has diminished with the proliferation of other conservative outlets, which have started to reach parity with their liberal counterparts in broadcast.

Again, good analysis.

I have mentored many young reporters and taught many journalism classes and long ago refined my role into that of a bad cop.

What I tell these kids is that if they don’t have a hair-on-fire enthusiasm, limitless curiosity and can’t show why readers should care about what they write then they need to find some other kind of work.

It is the rare creative writer who can excel at deadline journalism, and as Rick notes it is best left to the editor to pump up the prose. Trouble is, more and more newspapers follow the Bloomberg news service model wherein the reporters file directly to the wire. It shows.

If I may be so bold, I have excelled as a writer because I have done so damned much of it over the last 40-plus years and at some point found “my voice.” That is writing punchy and to-the-point prose that has some stylistic depth.

About half of all the visitors to my blog, which is a small one, arrive via Google, Yahoo or other portals. The robots at these search engines “love” my writing because that to-the-point prose is packed with key words that will take readers interested in, say, Duane Allman to my blog.

I am your liberal reader and I am all about healthcare reform and environmentalism. Yet I read conservative, independent and libertarian blogs often.

It is for a specific reason that relates to the newspapers demise. Speed. When news hits, the right and the left jump to the keyboards first.

Obama really needs to check in with the geek squad before he does this. We have real-time capabilities of the web, combined with the internet going mobile through phone apps. The likelyhood of information delivered by paper being “news” to anyone will be gone soon. There may be unheard of new mobile web competitors on the horizon. Internet papers may have a voice subscription that reads articles to you by phone. Oh- I like that idea!

By the way, I also read conservative posts because when we do agree on a topic, I can find good sources of detailed information. In terms of Healthcare reform, I wish conservatives knew that many liberals would have loved a Swiss style bill too. We never were never able to talk on that.

Every town has their rag that will tell you who is playing at the blues club, what’s on at the movies, or how good that new restaurant is. They usually cover local newsworthy events and politics, opinion, world news, lifestyle pieces, classifed ads..ect..

This is free, useful information that’s convenient to have at a local level…and consumers want it..

My local independent is not not hurting for advertising dollars…and is widely read in my town..

From my experience, most of these local papers seem have a slightly liberal bias…but that may be just because of the places I’ve chosen to live..

Let the big national papers die off…no government intervention allowed…

Heh - Shaun would have a thing or two to say about a “well crafted article” being “art” I’m sure. In a way, that’s the problem. Journalism is a profession and a craft. Too many creative writers want to be journalists. Give me the hard bitten beat reporter who can knock out 750 words in 20 minutes and gets the essence of the story. The editor can massage it or pump it up but the essence of who, what, when, why , and where are all there in the first 3 or 4 graphs.

There are a few reporters like that but not many. Today, they’re are a lot of Dana Milbanks who can be amusing but who is not much of a journalist.

ed.

“Sadly, many on both the right and the left read only those blogs that reflect their partisan tilt (this is less true on the left …).”

Hot Air had a post, “Conservatives more likely to read opposing viewpoints than Liberals”, in which university studies would seem to rebute this. Why do you think the left’s reading is more diverse?

Anecdotal evidence (i.e. not worth much). My sister, a liberal, accused me of getting all my info from Fox and right-leaning blogs. I told her I also read articles in Salon, Huffington Post, the NY Times, Washington Post, etc.
I also rarely watch Fox News. I asked her where she gets opposing views. Her answer was that she watches “Morning Joe” on MSNBC. Enough said about who is exposed to the most diverse commentary, etc.