Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Cry me a river

I'm an unabashed Megan McArdle fan, and her post on the death of the Newspaper industry is typically on-target.

Alas, the plight of the papers moves me not. I speak as a former subscriber to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, the (London) Daily Telegraph, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Boston Globe, and the New York Times (again).

Only the Telegraph is worth the bullet it would take to put it down.

The media has used its power too corruptly, too brazenly, and for too long. McArdle's statement hits home for me:
There just aren't enough customers who are willing to pay for their product what it costs to produce it.
Pay what it costs? I wouldn't pay what it's worth, which for the Globe is a negative $242.86. Not only would they fill up my trash, but I'd have to spend as much time getting disabused of the false narratives - or learning about important stories that they refuse to publish - as I spent reading their rags.

Don't let it hit you in the butt on the way out, jerks. You've managed to alienate maybe half your audience at precisely the time that it turned out you needed them to keep from getting your biased rear end laid off. At least you got President Hopey Change elected. We'll see if there's anyone around next year to try for a repeat.

As Insty would say: faster please.,

1 comment:

Paladin said...

I was done with print newspapers, when I realized that the only time I took them out of the plastic wrapper was when I needed masking material when painting or staining something.

I cancelled the subscription and bum used newspapers off of friends/family for that purpose now.