Letter To The Editor

Dear Editor. This just in -- newspapers are dying. Circulation is plummeting, advertising revenues are following suit, staff are being laid off and news bureaus are closing. “It’s that damn internet. . . no, kids don’t read. . . no, it’s a lack of trust created by talk radio. Save us Uncle Obama!” scream a thousand perplexed journalists. Actually, it’s your own fault, and I’m about to tell you why. Oh, and a handout from the Bank of Obama isn’t going to save you.

Let’s begin by checking out the scope of the problem. Advertising revenues are tied directly to circulation rates, and circulation rates have been falling for decades. When I was young, most of the adults I knew read newspapers, usually every day. And it wasn’t like I lived in a high class, newspaper consuming community. We were lower, lower middle class (if that) and yet most of the adults I knew read the paper -- so many in fact, that it just seemed like it was the one thing all Americans did.

Today’s circulation rates tell a very different story. Below are a list of the top ten newspapers by circulation.


Only 21 papers nationwide had circulations that exceeded 250,000 last year. If you add those top twenty-one together, you come up with a total circulation of 11.5 million, with almost half of that held by the top three papers. That means that less than 3.8% of Americans subscribe to newspapers. What happened?

The media usually makes three arguments: (1) the internet, (2) kids don’t read, and (3) people have become too cynical. But these arguments merely blame the consumer, rather than identify the real problems. This is typical of most failing businesses. . . it’s you, it’s not me. The reality is that each of the three reasons above are true, but the blame belongs with the newspapers, not the readers.

The internet certainly presents a problem for newspapers -- though we must remember that the decline in newspaper readership began long before the internet was glint in Algore’s eye, so take whining about the internet with a grain of salt. But presenting a problem is not the same thing as bringing about doom. Doom only comes when people refuse to see the problem and adjust their business model accordingly.

The problem with the newspaper model is that they’ve gotten sloppy and cheap. Year after year, newspapers laid off staff and closed bureaus. In their place, editors relied more and more on wire services, e.g. the AP. Today, there is virtually nothing in the national section (or international section -- assuming the paper even recognizes events beyond our borders) that isn’t simply a cut and paste from a wire service.

But this is precisely what the internet delivers -- wire service news, and it does it much faster and much more efficiently than any newspaper could. That is the problem, dear editor: why should anyone buy a newspaper, only to see tomorrow morning what they already knew the night before? You are fighting on turf where the internet has the advantage, and it’s not going to slow down and you can’t speed up. So what should newspapers do? Simple. They need to invest in new bureaus and better reporters. Go out and do the old school “journalism thing”: cultivate sources, do research, and conduct investigations. Get exclusives. . . lots of them. Give us exposés. Provide readers what they cannot find from a wire service. The only reason I read The Economist, despite their increasingly further left ideological bent, is that they provide news (in-depth news) that I simply can’t find anywhere else. You can do the same, dear Editor.

Sadly, newspapers have gone the other way. They’ve cut the very things they need to compete, all in the name of cost savings. It takes money to make money my dear editor. Stop being cheap.

Secondly, it’s true that younger people no longer read newspapers. But rather than whine about it, ask what you’ve done to change that? Do newspapers create child-friendly versions for students? Do they give student discounts for high schoolers or college kids? When the NFL realized that it was losing younger audiences, it didn’t whine about it, it set about hooking kids earlier. It did two things. First, the NFL sponsored youth leagues, having discovered that kids who play football grow up to watch it. Secondly, it created this new anti-obesity campaign which is ostensibly aimed at getting kids to exercise, but in reality is intended to interest kids in the NFL. Do the same.

Third, we’re not cynical, we just don’t like propaganda. It has become crystal clear over the past decade or two that the media has decided to promote left-wing causes. This includes favoring some stories over others, not reporting stories that run counter to leftist ideology, reporting leftist views uncritically while attacking non-leftist views, and filling every story (even non-ideological stories) with leftist agendas and propaganda. And the American public has noticed. Poll after poll shows American faith in the media as a presenter of truth to be at an all time low.

Yet, journalists have responded cynically. You attack your critics, you blackball non-leftists, you play down the opposition and you deny your bias -- indeed, ridiculously, many journalists fret publicly of a right-wing bias in the media. And then you use toothless ombudsmen who report after Democrats are safely elected that maybe. . . possibly. . . you weren’t 100% fair to the Republican. Or you attack Democrats once they leave office over some minor sin, and then you trumpet this as evidence of your fair and balanced treatment. You are only fooling yourselves.

If you want to regain your readers, you need to strip out the ideology from your reporting. Facts are facts and should be presented as such. Stop blurring news and analysis. Stop shading your coverage and favoring leftists. Slaughter all your sacred cows and investigate all sides equally. People want to know that they are getting the whole truth, not just the part you are willing to print. Moreover, when you present analysis, present both sides fairly. Stop repeating leftist talking points uncritically, no matter how illogical. We’re not that stupid that we don’t notice. And don’t try to slide an editorial from John McCain or some other token RINO by us as “the conservative position.” We know who is a conservative and who isn’t.

Finally, learn to respect your audience. For years, newspapers hid behind the idea that “this is what the customers want.” Stupid, shorter stories? We, journalists, aren’t being lazy, this is what the customer wants. Drop the international news? We’re not being cheap, this is what the customer wants. Lead with sensationalism -- if it bleeds it leads. . . sex sells! It’s not us, this is what the customer wants. No, this isn’t what the customer wants. This is lazy, easy reporting that can be done with little effort or ability and you are merely hiding behind your caricature of the customer to cover up your own sloth. And if that weren’t true, your circulations would be going up.

Also, let me suggest something else. Selling sex and violence exploits addictive behavior. This is a horrible idea, not because I think it’s immoral, but because addictive behavior (be it drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.) requires ever increasing stimulation to achieve the same high. Once people get used to seeing a bloody shirt on their front page or a naked chest, they will need more to get the same stimulation, i.e. incentive to buy. Soon you need full frontal nudity and dismembered corpses. How do you ratchet up the intensity after that? And how many other readers do you turn off in the process? Newspapers need to learn to trust their audience. We are people who want to be informed, not people who want to be excited. Leave that to Larry Flynt.

This is why I dropped my subscription.

Signed,
The American Reader