Why I'm cheering the downfall of the newspaper industry

[Dominus Atheos]

Unfortunately real journalism is dead and probably isn't coming back. As you explained above, most news sources are subservient to corporate interests, and have a huge stake in keeping the status quo. Plural of hearsay is probably the best we're going to get.

So you cheer the only form of news which draws anything but corporate advertising revenue?

So then there's nothing we can do, and we should just give up? You clearly realize there's a problem, so what's your solution to fixing it?

Clearly, you do not know how to read. Either that, or you do not know how to think. My solution is the exact opposite of yours: ideally, we would reject Internet and TV news for the shit that it is, and go back to newspapers. Of the three types, they're the best one, and if their revenue from readership went up, they might be able to resume their once-dominant role. Your idea (cheering their demise in favour of demonstrably worse alternatives) is sheer stupidity.

Will this happen? Probably not. But that doesn't mean I have to adopt your idiotic notion of saying that it's a good thing if the only major news format that actually derives revenue from the public is sent down the shitter.

So are you disputing the newspapers being a terrible source of information? You seem to think they're better then blogs and tv just by virtue of being a little more reliant on the public's money (even newspapers get a lot of money from advertising), but that really doesn't show in the quality of their reporting. The OP is all about how poor their reporting is, and I can link to more examples if you need them. If the ultimate goal is an informed public, then the status quo (which you're supporting) isn't going to work.

Of course, it's possible there is no way we can get an informed public, in which case I just want to see as many of the people preventing it begging for food on a street corner as possible. If it's all the same anyway.

[D.Turtle]

So then there's nothing we can do, and we should just give up? You clearly realize there's a problem, so what's your solution to fixing it?

Other countries manage to have a proper media.

What is needed is a serious reform of not only your media landscape (currently mostly huge media conglomerates), but also your journalistic standards/education.

You need state-funded (independent) media.
You need to get rid of your 24-hour news channels.
You need to start emphasizing journalistic standards.
You need to change the laws so that deliberate lying is punishable.

Not likely to happen though.

[Dominus Atheos]

So then there's nothing we can do, and we should just give up? You clearly realize there's a problem, so what's your solution to fixing it?

Other countries manage to have a proper media.

What is needed is a serious reform of not only your media landscape (currently mostly huge media conglomerates), but also your journalistic standards/education.

You need state-funded (independent) media.
You need to get rid of your 24-hour news channels.
You need to start emphasizing journalistic standards.
You need to change the laws so that deliberate lying is punishable.

Not likely to happen though.

State funded media and changing the laws are at least doable. Those other two are changes to the core of the profession, and are impossible without burning the current industry to the ground and starting from scratch.

[Darth Wong]

So are you disputing the newspapers being a terrible source of information? You seem to think they're better then blogs and tv just by virtue of being a little more reliant on the public's money (even newspapers get a lot of money from advertising), but that really doesn't show in the quality of their reporting. The OP is all about how poor their reporting is, and I can link to more examples if you need them. If the ultimate goal is an informed public, then the status quo (which you're supporting) isn't going to work.

How often do you actually read newspapers, you stupid shit? I'm guessing "never". The good ones are unquestionably leaps and bounds better than TV or Internet websites. They provide far more analysis and in-depth reporting than either of those sources do. They're the only ones which have any incentive to, and if you actually try reading them you'll find that they can't rely on the emotional impact of video clips to make up for writing in depth. Nor do they simply parrot AP releases the way Internet news sites and blogs overwhelmingly do: you can switch from one website to another and find that all of them have almost exactly the same wording for a given news story.

Your logic (that the entire format is uniformly inferior to TV and Internet because some bad examples of newspaper reporting can be found) is so idiotic that it's difficult to know where to begin. Do you really need me to spell out what's wrong with that reasoning?

[fgalkin]

Mike, he seems to think that Reuters and AP are "newspapers." That alone should tell you that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[The Guid]

Are News Magazines incorporated into this hatred? Or are they thought of somewhat better?

[Dominus Atheos]

So are you disputing the newspapers being a terrible source of information? You seem to think they're better then blogs and tv just by virtue of being a little more reliant on the public's money (even newspapers get a lot of money from advertising), but that really doesn't show in the quality of their reporting. The OP is all about how poor their reporting is, and I can link to more examples if you need them. If the ultimate goal is an informed public, then the status quo (which you're supporting) isn't going to work.

How often do you actually read newspapers, you stupid shit? I'm guessing "never". The good ones are unquestionably leaps and bounds better than TV or Internet websites. They provide far more analysis and in-depth reporting than either of those sources do. They're the only ones which have any incentive to, and if you actually try reading them you'll find that they can't rely on the emotional impact of video clips to make up for writing in depth. Nor do they simply parrot AP releases the way Internet news sites and blogs overwhelmingly do: you can switch from one website to another and find that all of them have almost exactly the same wording for a given news story.

I take it you don't actually read newspapers very much either. It's true that they don't "parrot" AP stories, but that's because they just print the AP story verbatim under an AP byline. Whether it's my local paper or your local paper, or even the New York Times, nearly every newspaper on the continent does it. Maybe the local news will be done by employees of the paper, but nearly all national and international news is done by the AP and printed in the newspapers. Since the AP doesn't really have any standards for what gets printed under an AP byline, that means a lot of the stuff printed in the national or world sections of most papers are full of misinformation, and can't really be trusted to be true. Since people who read the paper assume that the stuff printed in those sections are just as good as the real reporting done by the employees of the paper (who may very well have standards for what their own employees write), this leads to the problem I described above.

[Dominus Atheos]

Mike, he seems to think that Reuters and AP are "newspapers." That alone should tell you that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Since most of the stuff printed in the national and international sections of nearly every newspaper comes from the AP or Reuters, I think it's perfectly reasonable to consider them to be the same thing.

[ray245]

I take it you don't actually read newspapers very much either. It's true that they don't "parrot" AP stories, but that's because they just print the AP story verbatim under an AP byline. Whether it's my local paper or your local paper, or even the New York Times, nearly every newspaper on the continent does it. Maybe the local news will be done by employees of the paper, but nearly all national and international news is done by the AP and printed in the newspapers. Since the AP doesn't really have any standards for what gets printed under an AP byline, that means a lot of the stuff printed in the national or world sections of most papers are full of misinformation, and can't really be trusted to be true. Since people who read the paper assume that the stuff printed in those sections are just as good as the real reporting done by the employees of the paper (who may very well have standards for what their own employees write), this leads to the problem I described above.

There will always be misinformation in the world, even when blogs replaced newspapers as the primary news source, people will still treat those misinformation at face value.

You are arguing against a human condition to begin with. Come on, if so many people is so smart and was able to think about information given to them, there will not be so many people who believed in pseudo-science and ghost stories.

[MKSheppard]

Oh, I love this from the OP

Abducting people with no due process, shipping them off to Afghanistan, and then locking them up for years with no rights of any kind. Purposely concealing -- keeping secret -- evidence of massive government torture programs.

Apparently Gleen Greenwald, noted Sock Puppet Par Extraordinarre doesn't know his history:

July 2, 1942
No. 2661

DENYING CERTAIN ENEMIES ACCESS TO THE COURTS OF THE UNITED STATES
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS the safety of the United States demands that all enemies who have entered upon the territory of the United States as part of an invasion or predatory incursion, or who have entered in order to commit sabotage, espionage or other hostile or warlike acts, should be promptly tried in accordance with the law of war;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, President of the United States of America and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes of the United States, do hereby proclaim that all persons who are subjects, citizens or residents of any nation at war with the United States or who give obedience to or act under the direction of any such nation, and who during time of war enter or attempt to enter the United States or any territory or possession thereof, through coastal or boundary defenses, and are charged with committing or attempting or preparing to commit sabotage, espionage, hostile or warlike acts, or violations of the law of war, shall be subject to the law of war and to the jurisdiction of military tribunals; and that such persons shall not be privileged to seek any remedy or maintain any proceeding, directly or indirectly, or to have any such remedy or proceeding sought on their behalf, in the courts of the United States, or of its States, territories, and possessions, except under such regulations as the Attorney General, with the approval of the Secretary of War, may from time to time prescribe.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the City of Washington this 2nd day of July, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-sixth.

FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT

By the President:
Cordell Hull
Secretary of State

[Darth Wong]

I take it you don't actually read newspapers very much either. It's true that they don't "parrot" AP stories, but that's because they just print the AP story verbatim under an AP byline. Whether it's my local paper or your local paper, or even the New York Times, nearly every newspaper on the continent does it.

You're an idiot. The fact that newspapers don't completely eschew that kind of content does not mean that it's all they do, which is the case with the Internet bloggers that you prefer. Newspapers, unlike Internet bloggers, still hire these curious historical anachronisms known as "investigative journalists" and uncover scandals. For example, the Globe and Mail newspaper in Canada broke the Sponsorship Scandal in 2002, thus bringing down the federal government. Bloggers then wrote reams of material opining about it, but they did NONE of the investigative work. They simply reaped the rewards.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Atheos seems to be one of those people who wants to whack the impure and unrighteous out of spite and principle - damn the utilitarian or realistic outcomes -, and just presumes and believes dogmatically the result will work out better. American newspapers may often be Establishment and Right tools, but that does not mean the survivors of deliberately cheering their death will be any better populist, democratic, critical media providers. It is just presumed to be so. At no point has he substantiated where the bloggers will provide the functions newspapers do, much less do it better. He just adds that the newspapers are not virtuous over and over again.

[Patrick Degan]

NPR's Talk Of The Nation programme was discussing this very subject this afternoon. One of the observations pointed out about newspapers is that they provide one thing which TV/internet journalism cannot, and that's boots on the ground. "The Russian Army of journalism" as one commentator phrased it, which can dispatch a larger number of reporters to cover a given story or multiple stories simultaneously. As was later observed, even if internet journalists attain the same level of reportorial excellence as their print bretheren, the plain and simple fact is that an internet blogger cannot do the same job as three or four reporters and the overall quality of journalism is bound to suffer if the whole thing falls upon the blogosphere to fill the gaps.

[Dominus Atheos]

I take it you don't actually read newspapers very much either. It's true that they don't "parrot" AP stories, but that's because they just print the AP story verbatim under an AP byline. Whether it's my local paper or your local paper, or even the New York Times, nearly every newspaper on the continent does it.

You're an idiot. The fact that newspapers don't completely eschew that kind of content does not mean that it's all they do, which is the case with the Internet bloggers that you prefer. Newspapers, unlike Internet bloggers, still hire these curious historical anachronisms known as "investigative journalists" and uncover scandals. For example, the Globe and Mail newspaper in Canada broke the Sponsorship Scandal in 2002, thus bringing down the federal government. Bloggers then wrote reams of material opining about it, but they did NONE of the investigative work. They simply reaped the rewards.

So? The fact that some newspapers do some good local reporting doesn't excuse the entire industry, or even those few papers. The fact remains that a large portion of what they print is of staggeringly low quality when it comes to truth and journalistic standards.

[Dominus Atheos]

Atheos seems to be one of those people who wants to whack the impure and unrighteous out of spite and principle - damn the utilitarian or realistic outcomes -, and just presumes and believes dogmatically the result will work out better. American newspapers may often be Establishment and Right tools, but that does not mean the survivors of deliberately cheering their death will be any better populist, democratic, critical media providers. It is just presumed to be so. At no point has he substantiated where the bloggers will provide the functions newspapers do, much less do it better. He just adds that the newspapers are not virtuous over and over again.

That's probably because I haven't made the claim that bloggers are going to do a better job then the newspapers. In fact, I've consistently said the opposite:

But remember blogs aren't the best news source, so approach anything they say critically, and try reading multiple blogs so you can get different viewpoints.

Unfortunately real journalism is dead and probably isn't coming back... Plural of hearsay is probably the best we're going to get.

I would appreciate it if, in the future, you wouldn't lie about my position.

[Dominus Atheos]

NPR's Talk Of The Nation programme was discussing this very subject this afternoon. One of the observations pointed out about newspapers is that they provide one thing which TV/internet journalism cannot, and that's boots on the ground. "The Russian Army of journalism" as one commentator phrased it, which can dispatch a larger number of reporters to cover a given story or multiple stories simultaneously. As was later observed, even if internet journalists attain the same level of reportorial excellence as their print bretheren, the plain and simple fact is that an internet blogger cannot do the same job as three or four reporters and the overall quality of journalism is bound to suffer if the whole thing falls upon the blogosphere to fill the gaps.

While I personally don't believe that "the overall quality of journalism" can "suffer" any lower then it already has, I completely realize that bloggers aren't necessarily going to do a better job then the newspapers do. Due to the fact that the papers (When I say newspapers, I mean the ones like the NYT, the WaPo, and the AP since that's where nearly every local paper gets their national and international stories from, and it's newspapers who pay and support the AP) are of such goddamn low quality, it would be really hard for them not to, though. I certainly don't think that if newspapers fall, we're going to enter a golden age where the public is well informed about what's going on in the world or anything like that.

But maybe I should explain why I'm cheering the downfall of the newspaper industry: Mostly it's because of the Iraq War. Leading up to the war, the Bush Administration made up a bunch of lies about Iraq like they were behind 9/11, WMDs and yellow cake uranium, and we had to go fight them over there so we wouldn't have to fight them over here. All of these lies were easily disprovable if the papers had actually done some of that investigative journalism that Dart Wong was trumpeting earlier in the thread as the reason we need to keep them around, but they didn't. Instead they just wrote down those lies and printed them as the truth without bothering to fact-check any of it. The result is we've wasted trillions of dollars and gotten millions of Iraqis killed (which most people seem to forget) and have almost nothing to show for it. We're aren't anymore safe then we we were before, in fact we may be even less safe after whacking that hornet's nest. All of that could have been avoided if the newspapers had just done their jobs.

So in other words, I blame the newspapers (and the news networks, and if they ever fall I'll cheer them too) for the trillions of wasted dollars and millions of dead Iraqis, and I want to see the so-called journalists sitting on a street corner wrapped in a tattered old blanket holding a metal cup begging for change. Not because I think it will make the world a better place, but because out of pure sadistic glee for the millions of people they got killed. If the bloggers ever do anything like that, I'll cheer their downfall too.

[aerius]

If the bloggers ever do anything like that, I'll cheer their downfall too.

Read any right-wing blogs lately?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Atheos seems to be one of those people who wants to whack the impure and unrighteous out of spite and principle - damn the utilitarian or realistic outcomes -, and just presumes and believes dogmatically the result will work out better. American newspapers may often be Establishment and Right tools, but that does not mean the survivors of deliberately cheering their death will be any better populist, democratic, critical media providers. It is just presumed to be so. At no point has he substantiated where the bloggers will provide the functions newspapers do, much less do it better. He just adds that the newspapers are not virtuous over and over again.

That's probably because I haven't made the claim that bloggers are going to do a better job then the newspapers. In fact, I've consistently said the opposite:

But remember blogs aren't the best news source, so approach anything they say critically, and try reading multiple blogs so you can get different viewpoints.

Unfortunately real journalism is dead and probably isn't coming back... Plural of hearsay is probably the best we're going to get.

I would appreciate it if, in the future, you wouldn't lie about my position.

Then why are you "cheering the downfall of the newspaper industry", when, in the absence of sources of journalism better than newspapers, the downfall of the latter will cause a net decline in the sum quality of all journalism? If the survivors are not better than newspapers, than how is the extinction of newspapers going to produce a desirable outcome?

I don't think its unfair at all to point out you are just apparently for this outcome out of aggressive ignorance or out of a "smite the sinful" self-righteousness that puts visceral emotional appeal over concrete outcomes. Its exactly the kind of absurd reasoning that right-wing populists indulge in preaching for the collapse of the American economy just to teach the non-Randians a spiteful lesson, irregardless of its impact in their quality of life or the well-being of the American people and state

[TheKwas]

So in other words, I blame the newspapers (and the news networks, and if they ever fall I'll cheer them too) for the trillions of wasted dollars and millions of dead Iraqis, and I want to see the so-called journalists sitting on a street corner wrapped in a tattered old blanket holding a metal cup begging for change. Not because I think it will make the world a better place, but because out of pure sadistic glee for the millions of people they got killed. If the bloggers ever do anything like that, I'll cheer their downfall too.

Are you serious? This entire thread is based off your sadism without regard for the consequences? For your information, both the news networks and bloggers did the exact same thing as the newspapers; hell, internet forums did the same thing. By your logic, the fall of all information exchange institutions would be a good thing because of a shitty war that resulted from 'bad' information exchange. A population entirely shut out from world events and current news is better than a population that has a mix of good information and bad information.

Misanthropic much?

[Patrick Degan]

NPR's Talk Of The Nation programme was discussing this very subject this afternoon. One of the observations pointed out about newspapers is that they provide one thing which TV/internet journalism cannot, and that's boots on the ground. "The Russian Army of journalism" as one commentator phrased it, which can dispatch a larger number of reporters to cover a given story or multiple stories simultaneously. As was later observed, even if internet journalists attain the same level of reportorial excellence as their print bretheren, the plain and simple fact is that an internet blogger cannot do the same job as three or four reporters and the overall quality of journalism is bound to suffer if the whole thing falls upon the blogosphere to fill the gaps.

While I personally don't believe that "the overall quality of journalism" can "suffer" any lower then it already has, I completely realize that bloggers aren't necessarily going to do a better job then the newspapers do. Due to the fact that the papers (When I say newspapers, I mean the ones like the NYT, the WaPo, and the AP since that's where nearly every local paper gets their national and international stories from, and it's newspapers who pay and support the AP) are of such goddamn low quality, it would be really hard for them not to, though. I certainly don't think that if newspapers fall, we're going to enter a golden age where the public is well informed about what's going on in the world or anything like that.

But maybe I should explain why I'm cheering the downfall of the newspaper industry: Mostly it's because of the Iraq War. Leading up to the war, the Bush Administration made up a bunch of lies about Iraq like they were behind 9/11, WMDs and yellow cake uranium, and we had to go fight them over there so we wouldn't have to fight them over here. All of these lies were easily disprovable if the papers had actually done some of that investigative journalism that Dart Wong was trumpeting earlier in the thread as the reason we need to keep them around, but they didn't. Instead they just wrote down those lies and printed them as the truth without bothering to fact-check any of it. The result is we've wasted trillions of dollars and gotten millions of Iraqis killed (which most people seem to forget) and have almost nothing to show for it. We're aren't anymore safe then we we were before, in fact we may be even less safe after whacking that hornet's nest. All of that could have been avoided if the newspapers had just done their jobs.

So in other words, I blame the newspapers (and the news networks, and if they ever fall I'll cheer them too) for the trillions of wasted dollars and millions of dead Iraqis, and I want to see the so-called journalists sitting on a street corner wrapped in a tattered old blanket holding a metal cup begging for change. Not because I think it will make the world a better place, but because out of pure sadistic glee for the millions of people they got killed. If the bloggers ever do anything like that, I'll cheer their downfall too.

Nevermind that the objective harm that would be rendered by the disappearance of newspapers would impact upon coverage of local issues vital for an informed electorate. Nevermind that TV and internet news is demonstrably worse by degrees than print.

You also engage in a horribly obvious False Cause Fallacy: the newspaper industry no more caused the Iraq War than Osama BinLaden.

You also offer nothing in the way of ideas as to what could replace newspapers as a functional component of media.

It's alright if they burn because it would satisfy your sadistic urges.

Really, you're a moron.

[Ziggy Stardust]

(Not to jump on the bandwagon, here, but since I work for a newspaper I feel I might as well respond)

While I personally don't believe that "the overall quality of journalism" can "suffer" any lower then it already has, I completely realize that bloggers aren't necessarily going to do a better job then the newspapers do.

You really don't think it can get worse than it is? For all the problems with the journalism industry, it's still doing it's job fairly well, all things considered. Do you even watch the news? Do you notice how much scrutiny politicians and businessmen are under? Have you heard about the numerous scandals that have been uncovered?

Due to the fact that the papers (When I say newspapers, I mean the ones like the NYT, the WaPo, and the AP since that's where nearly every local paper gets their national and international stories from, and it's newspapers who pay and support the AP) are of such goddamn low quality, it would be really hard for them not to, though.

So you pick TWO newspapers and one news feed and you think that represents the entire industry? I also notice you don't provide any evidence for why these sources are of such abominable quality, and why they are representative of any trend.

But maybe I should explain why I'm cheering the downfall of the newspaper industry: Mostly it's because of the Iraq War. Leading up to the war, the Bush Administration made up a bunch of lies about Iraq like they were behind 9/11, WMDs and yellow cake uranium, and we had to go fight them over there so we wouldn't have to fight them over here. All of these lies were easily disprovable if the papers had actually done some of that investigative journalism that Dart Wong was trumpeting earlier in the thread as the reason we need to keep them around, but they didn't. Instead they just wrote down those lies and printed them as the truth without bothering to fact-check any of it. The result is we've wasted trillions of dollars and gotten millions of Iraqis killed (which most people seem to forget) and have almost nothing to show for it. We're aren't anymore safe then we we were before, in fact we may be even less safe after whacking that hornet's nest. All of that could have been avoided if the newspapers had just done their jobs.

Actually, many newspapers were critical of the war. It was the major television networks that did nothing to question things. Also, in many cases it wasn't that the reporters weren't doing their jobs, it was the editors giving in to corporate bullying. A reporter from the Washington Post, for example, was barred from publishing a piece he wrote in 2003, which has since been published elsewhere (I can't recall where, exactly, at the moment). On top of that, there was a deliberate effort by the Bush Administration to mislead investigating journalists by leaking false information to them, which they could then publicly discredit. Journalists could have done a better job, yes, everybody knows that. But that was six years ago, now (not to mention more the fault of TV networks than newspapers).

So in other words, I blame the newspapers (and the news networks, and if they ever fall I'll cheer them too) for the trillions of wasted dollars and millions of dead Iraqis,

Then you're an idiot who I suspect doesn't even read newspapers now, and definitely wasn't reading them six years ago.

[Darth Wong]

But maybe I should explain why I'm cheering the downfall of the newspaper industry: Mostly it's because of the Iraq War.

You realize that newspapers all around the world condemned the Bush Administration around the clock leading up to that war? Oh wait, I forgot: the entire world is the US. Right?

In reality, TV and the Internet (counting only American websites) were at least as pro-Bush as newspapers were. Were you even politically aware in 2002? In the so-called "city on the hill", newspapers and magazines were the only places publishing anything resembling thorough commentary on the issue in 2002. TV and the Internet were dominated by 10-second sound-bites, which favour the tough-guy troglodytes. Could the print world have done a better job? Yes. But they were already doing a better job than TV and the Internet. For example, Fareed Zakaria was writing long articles explaining some of the fallacies in Republican thinking, and bringing a lot of exposure to the anti-war position.

You seem to think that because there are some radical websites in the US which came out and attacked Bush wholeheartedly, that this somehow validates the idea of Internet news. But those are not news websites: they are political comentary, and the Internet's vast diversity of commentary doesn't really mean anything: the Internet also takes AIV-HIDS denial, autism-vaccine causality, and the 9/11 Truth movement seriously.

[Illuminatus Primus]

NPR's Talk Of The Nation programme was discussing this very subject this afternoon. One of the observations pointed out about newspapers is that they provide one thing which TV/internet journalism cannot, and that's boots on the ground. "The Russian Army of journalism" as one commentator phrased it, which can dispatch a larger number of reporters to cover a given story or multiple stories simultaneously. As was later observed, even if internet journalists attain the same level of reportorial excellence as their print bretheren, the plain and simple fact is that an internet blogger cannot do the same job as three or four reporters and the overall quality of journalism is bound to suffer if the whole thing falls upon the blogosphere to fill the gaps.

While I personally don't believe that "the overall quality of journalism" can "suffer" any lower then it already has, I completely realize that bloggers aren't necessarily going to do a better job then the newspapers do. Due to the fact that the papers (When I say newspapers, I mean the ones like the NYT, the WaPo, and the AP since that's where nearly every local paper gets their national and international stories from, and it's newspapers who pay and support the AP) are of such goddamn low quality, it would be really hard for them not to, though. I certainly don't think that if newspapers fall, we're going to enter a golden age where the public is well informed about what's going on in the world or anything like that.

But maybe I should explain why I'm cheering the downfall of the newspaper industry: Mostly it's because of the Iraq War. Leading up to the war, the Bush Administration made up a bunch of lies about Iraq like they were behind 9/11, WMDs and yellow cake uranium, and we had to go fight them over there so we wouldn't have to fight them over here. All of these lies were easily disprovable if the papers had actually done some of that investigative journalism that Dart Wong was trumpeting earlier in the thread as the reason we need to keep them around, but they didn't. Instead they just wrote down those lies and printed them as the truth without bothering to fact-check any of it. The result is we've wasted trillions of dollars and gotten millions of Iraqis killed (which most people seem to forget) and have almost nothing to show for it. We're aren't anymore safe then we we were before, in fact we may be even less safe after whacking that hornet's nest. All of that could have been avoided if the newspapers had just done their jobs.

So in other words, I blame the newspapers (and the news networks, and if they ever fall I'll cheer them too) for the trillions of wasted dollars and millions of dead Iraqis, and I want to see the so-called journalists sitting on a street corner wrapped in a tattered old blanket holding a metal cup begging for change. Not because I think it will make the world a better place, but because out of pure sadistic glee for the millions of people they got killed. If the bloggers ever do anything like that, I'll cheer their downfall too.

Translation: You're a spiteful little bitch who does not care if the things he advocates for actually create a worse outcome for society, only that he get to wet his beak with the righteous suffering of others. As I said before, your "reason" is cut from the same idiot cloth as the right-wing true-believers who would see the economy go down in flames just to punish the unwise and their Randian inferiors.

[ray245]

But maybe I should explain why I'm cheering the downfall of the newspaper industry: Mostly it's because of the Iraq War.

You realize that newspapers all around the world condemned the Bush Administration around the clock leading up to that war? Oh wait, I forgot: the entire world is the US. Right?

In reality, TV and the Internet (counting only American websites) were at least as pro-Bush as newspapers were. Were you even politically aware in 2002? In the so-called "city on the hill", newspapers and magazines were the only places publishing anything resembling thorough commentary on the issue in 2002. TV and the Internet were dominated by 10-second sound-bites, which favour the tough-guy troglodytes. Could the print world have done a better job? Yes. But they were already doing a better job than TV and the Internet. For example, Fareed Zakaria was writing long articles explaining some of the fallacies in Republican thinking, and bringing a lot of exposure to the anti-war position.

You seem to think that because there are some radical websites in the US which came out and attacked Bush wholeheartedly, that this somehow validates the idea of Internet news. But those are not news websites: they are political comentary, and the Internet's vast diversity of commentary doesn't really mean anything: the Internet also takes AIV-HIDS denial, autism-vaccine causality, and the 9/11 Truth movement seriously.

I remember back in 04/05 when I'm still a lurker, the sizable amount of people down here as well who laughed and mocked the French for being scared of fighting for the benefit of everyone in the world.

By the way, isn't DA resorting to the black and white fallacy for his entire argument? That if the newspaper industry isn't fully reliable, it must be bad, and bad industry needs to the taken down.