Is unbiased news dead?
What the accelerating decline in newspaper circulation says about America's appetite for straight news
Has straight journalism been replaced by ideologically driven news?
(Snapstock/CSA Images/Corbis)
Figures released this week showed that big-city newspapers lost as much as a quarter of their readers over the last six months. And CNN's prime-time news shows are getting trounced in the ratings by other cable channels' opinion programming. Are Americans sick of unbiased news?
People want straight news, they just won't pay for it: The appetite for solid, serious news coverage is still strong, says Joel Achenbach in The Washington Post. But it costs a lot of money to have a "veteran journalist" with great sources produce a story on Afghanistan. And people won't pay a newspaper to deliver it as long as they can get it for free from some "freeloading" website.
"Paperboys"
Unbiased news never existed: Newspapers are going bankrupt, says John Hinderaker in Power Line, because they refuse to "abandon their liberal bias." And CNN's sneering liberalism might be behind its decline as well. The cable network is trying to goose its ratings by putting its personalities on game shows to "show off their superior intelligence"—maybe it should just try covering the news straight.
"CNN's ratings falling faster than Obama's"
Canceling your paper makes you stupid, no matter why you do it: Reading two newspapers a day makes you smarter, says John Dodge in Smartplanet.com. And readers who get their news from Google get a pass for a while, because their searches still call up articles from the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. But as circulations continue to fall, publishers will cut staffs further and "coverage and depth will shrink"—so we'll all pay.
"Newspaper circulation’s downward spiral"
The pretense of objectivity is dead, but we still want the truth: European papers have long shown their political stripes freely, says Michael Ledeen in Pajamas Media, but Americans have always expected their reporters to give them the truth straight. We've grown wiser, though, and see subtle bias everywhere—so now we have to sift through our "blogs, posts, tweets, videos, and messages of all sorts," and find the truth for ourselves.
"Bias then and now"
Show: Oldest | Newest
16 Comments
Posted by Michael G. Siegfried, Thursday, October 29, 2009, 2:05 pm The question BEGS for a YES answer. After all, most people who read this page are regular readers of THE WEEK, a fairly new publication, that appears devoted to fairly presenting both or if required all sides of current events. Should my local dailies, being the Chicago Tribune or the Chicago SunTimes both fold I will be first in line to purchase their online replacements and I will not be the only one doing so!
Posted by Buckley Conservative Republican, Thursday, October 29, 2009, 2:23 pm I swear, conservatives need to come up with a better excuse than the tired tripe of a liberal media for the discrepancy between how they think or hope the world works and how the world actually works. As a conservative Republican, I firmly hold that the notion of Fox News as news is painfully ludicrous, and my fellow conservative brethren are taking the mickey. We're being laughed at, and those who deride us become increasingly justified the more we push back with our patently false Fox News talking points. Wake up, conservatives.
Posted by dj specllchecka, Thursday, October 29, 2009, 2:25 pm hinderaker's an idiot. newspapers financial troubles: the readers went to the web and the advertisers didn't...via nielsen online the most visited newspaper websites for 2008...1. The New York Times..2. USA Today..3. The Washington Post..4. The Los Angeles Times..5. The Wall Street Journal..6. The Boston Globe..7. New York Post..8. Chicago Tribune..9. New York Daily News..10. San Francisco Chronicle...i suspect he would say most of these papers have refused to 'abandon their liberal bias.' ps cnn is losing to msnbc. folks HATE lib bias..not
Posted by mjg, Thursday, October 29, 2009, 3:04 pm fair and balanced, fair and balanced, fair and balanced, fair and balanced, the broken record of Fox, the scandal and propaganda sheet of the far right.
Posted by dan, Thursday, October 29, 2009, 3:45 pm There never was 'unbiased' media. Do a little reading. Remember, Yellow Journalism? Think Walter Cronkite didn't editorialize? Yes, he did. Editing is a process of bias. Lincoln and FDR, and most presidents, got after the media. Nixon. Clinton, oh, sorry, they were all in his corner...which made them unbiased, i guess. Now, BO thinks someone doesn't like him and they questions his 'facts.' waayy. babies. get on with your jobs, and stop whining about why some people don't believe you. there is no such thing as fair and balanced. grow up, bho.
Posted by Arnie, Thursday, October 29, 2009, 3:47 pm Liberal media? So good for a big laugh. They cannot look objectively and tell the truth. They see black or white. Not an option for them to tell the truth. Sad. Small wonder they are losing viewers and subscribers. dj spell, no one really likes liberal media. It's a joke, like 24/7 SNL.
Posted by dj spellchecka, Thursday, October 29, 2009, 5:43 pm according to eBizMBA.com, cnn is number one on their Top 15 Most Popular News Websites list, fauxnews is number 11 and msnbc is number 15. the rest: 2. Yahoo! News.. 3. digg..4. New York Times..5. USA Today...6. BBC News..7. Reuters..8. Washington Post..9 .Google News..10. Huffington Post.. 12. Los Angeles Times..13. Guardian..14. Times Online.. website traffic among the newspapers dwarfs actual circulation of physical product. the mainstream media isn't losing readers
Posted by Tomas, Thursday, October 29, 2009, 9:17 pm check the tv ratings. Fox is one. fox 'entertainment' is one, too. there is quite a difference between news and entertainment. on the other stations or paper publications, entertainment, opinion and 'news' is blended. all is opinion and selling the public on the media outlet's point of view. small wonder they are losing subscribers. not worth the money.
Post a Comment