Two Ways Our Newspapers Are Committing Suicide

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Most major American newspapers are scoring a painful trifecta: losing readers, waving goodbye to advertisers, and firing journalists. Why is this happening?

Sure, the internet is a big problem. But I can mention two other reasons which the embattled newspapers don’t like to mention. The first is real simple. Rush Limbaugh is worth hundreds of millions of dollars because many big newspapers refuse to do their job. They refuses, that is, to report news factually and impartially. (“Without fear or favor”–as one major paper used to boast.)

It’s clear that the editors of many papers are more in love with a personal political agenda than with a bottom line. Admirable? Not if you, like me, wish to have a news source that you can totally trust. Here’s what is clearly not admirable: that editors are willing to engage in spin and propaganda. Journalistic integrity demands the opposite.

Here’s the truly odd part about all this. Anybody smart enough to read a newspaper can find many other sources: network programs, cable, internet, talk radio, magazines, and blogs. Newspapers should be trying harder than ever to earn our trust; instead they squander that trust.

Some of these big papers have a transparent agenda: abortion, gay marriage, global warming, taxes, socialism, and the death penalty. I don’t have to tell you the paper’s position on any of this, do I? You know the positions all too well, because these liberal papers preach, from first page to last, smugly and condescendingly. No wonder that readers flee.

My local paper (in Norfolk, Va.) recently covered tornados in Florida with big headlines and lots of text. Last summer, a heat wave got similarly breathless coverage, with constant repetitions of which temperature readings were record highs. (All of this without mentioning either the “heat island effect” or the receding ice caps on other planets–both of which tend to nullify the claim of a record). On the other hand, an horrific Arctic front (in early 2007) was covered in small stories. Most striking, there was no mention of record lows. The temperature hit 30 and 40 below zero in Wisconsin, numbers I found almost incredible. I had to go on the internet to find out that some towns did set records.

But the suicide-prone media won’t give this information because it might cause readers to doubt the endless sermons about global warming.

Why not just report the facts?

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A second reason for the newspapers’ decline is that the liberal media unthinkingly support the education establishment, on the mistaken assumption that this group represents some sort of progressive or liberal high ground. In fact, the educational establishment is often better described as regressive, for keeping students uninformed, giving future workers few tools for success, and favoring oddball reading theories that cause dyslexia and functional illiteracy.

There is in fact no necessary link between the politics of our education establishment and anyone’s progressive values. This is a deception that unthinking liberals fall for. Antonio Gramsci, a real Communist, advocated giving poor children lots of basic academic skills, so they can escape poverty. What, pray tell, is “progressive” about schools that allow children to graduate without being able to read or write properly? No, the only sure link is the one between the media’s support of intellectually flabby educators and the continuing decline of the media themselves. Why don’t they see it: the schools are killing off their customer base!

Last year my local paper ran three stories attacking charter schools, essentially the same story, in every case besmirching the charter concept on some slender statistical point. The larger point is that we need competition; we need experimentation; we need every approach we can find. A smart media would be telling us all the good things about charter schools, parochial schools, homeschooling, etc., and the bad things about the near-monopoly now abused by the public schools.

Experts say this country has more than 40,000,000 functional illiterates. People are ignorant about even the most basic stuff. Where’s New York? Which way is the Pacific Ocean? What is France?…Seriously, how can people who don’t have any background information enjoy reading a newspaper?

How to save the newspapers? First, they have to start believing in Truth and reporting the truth. Banish political correctness when it conflicts with factual correctness. Second, realize that education, as it’s often practiced in public schools, is not the friend but the enemy of newspapers. If our newspapers had better judgment, they would demand more achievement in the public schools, and more objectivity in their own pages.

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Source by Bruce Deitrick Price