The Decline of the American Media

The conservative columnist George Will had an enlightening piece published in The Washington Post’s online edition this past Sunday about declining hard-copy newspaper circulation. I do not much care for Will, who has been proven to be unethical, overly pedantic in a stylistic sense, and tied to a regressive ideology that threatens American democracy. But this piece pretty much sets aside politics momentarily for a discussion of facts about the newspaper industry. I could care less what conclusions Will draws from these facts, but everyone should pay attention to one main argument:

Newspapers in hard-copy form, as Will argues, are dying out.

Let me take this further. Newspapers are relics, dinosaurs, sinking ships, ugly, stupid reminders of a long ago era. They do not click or link or speak or show or amuse or astound. They line the floors of our houses when we paint inside, true. They are used in our packing boxes when we ship something, true. Some people still use them for paper machete creations. But if you want to know what is really going on, if you are really intelligent, if you are really self-aware, you have to go online. Newspapers—again, in hard-copy form, and this is a big distinction—slow us down because they put too much energy in supporting declining monopolies tied to the old technologies of newsprint presses and fossil fuels.

This, in turn, I will argue later in this blog is a major reason the mainstream media has become so conservative in the last decade or so, and this is also one of the reasons there seems to be this big disconnect between the fact a majority of newspaper reporters still apparently describe themselves as liberal even as their stories support one of the most conservative presidential regimes in the nation’s history. As I have mentioned before, I think this administration is now a full quasi-fascist government. (Alas, we teeter on fascism, Funko Heads, and I do not care if you think that is hyperbole. I read somewhere recently that our first thought everyday when we wake up should be, These are not normal times. I need to do at least one thing today to protect democracy from the theocrats. I agree with that, and I hope you do, too.)

The declining circulation numbers and the growing conservatism of the mainstream media is especially important to us in Okalahoma, which is home to the largest, most conservative newspaper in the nation, The Daily Oklahoman.

I have many arguments, but first some numbers, as cited by Will in his article, “Unread and Unsubscribing” (The Washington Post, April 2004, 2005).

Overall newspaper circulation is down from 62.3 million in 1990 to 55.2 million today.

Only 23 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 say they read newspapers.

People between the ages of 8 and 18 spend only 43 minutes a day with all print media, newspapers, magazines, books, but more than six hours a day with all media.

Expertsclaim, according to the article, that people do not change their reading habits significantly as they age. That just makes common sense.

Locally, The Daily Oklahoman’s hard-copy circulation continues to decline overall as evidenced by their recent and drastic price cut a couple of years ago. I am sure it is no different at The Tulsa World or any other newspaper in the state. I am also sure “hits” are increasing at all the online newspaper sites in the state. The new model, then, is free online newspapers supported by ad revenues. Many metropolitan newspaper publishers recognize this, but they are moving slow, slow, and slower because these monopolies want to suck the last piece of subscription change from your pockets.

What few pundits or media critics talk about is how this “slow” changing of newspapers to online models has created an extremely conservative mainstream media. I would argue that, overall, newspaper editors and reporters are still tied to a regressive, monopolistic model of journalism. This, by definition, creates conservative politics. Plunging into the online world for many reporters and editors must be a tad frightening for these reasons: (1) You have to work harder if you must update your story constantly, (2) you have more competition from bloggers and other sites who challenge your job on different levels consistently, and (3) you might not know much about the technical side of computers and code language, and you might be right that you are way behind the curve of a major media revolution in the world.

All this means that newspaper editors and reporters will consciously and subconsciously protect the status quo and the status quo is always conservative, always tied to the “good ole days” philosophy that forgets this one important fact: back in the “good ole days” no one really thought it was that good; no, in fact, there were times when it was downright ugly and immoral in this country. Take slavery, for example, or how about the lack of women’s rights in the nineteenth century?

Hard-copy newspapers are tried to regressive politics in these ways as well: (1) Tons upon tons of newsprint must be produced annually to sustain a dying industry, (2) huge trucks using large amounts of gasoline must be used to deliver newspapers to their destinations. Killing trees and using the last vestiges of fuel in “The Oil Age” can hardly be described as forward, progressive thinking. Again, I think editors and reporters, and even those who might describe themselves as political liberals, subconsciously support other dying industries that are harmful to the world’s ecosystem.

It simply amazes me that newspaper editors and reporters can describe themselves as progressive when they are anti-progress and tied to old technologies. In fact, they are not liberals. They are deluded. By definition, if you work as a reporter or editor (not necessarily as a progressive political columnist) for a major, metropolitan daily newspaper on the hard-copy side, then you are a conservative, backwards-thinking person no matter how you vote in political elections. If you were not and you had any sense of morality and justice, you would be scrambling to get to the online side, or you would quit altogether and work for a progressive, online publication. That would be a life-affirming decision, and you would sleep better at nights as well.

What all this means is that newspapers today want to remain as boring and meaningless as they now are. Newspapers, then, frame the issues in ways that are already conservative. The Daily Oklahoman is a perfect example of this. Our state’s largest newspaper already assumes that virtually all the state’s residents naturally support oil companies, big business, monopolies, a continuance reliance on fossil fuels, tax breaks for the wealthy, the whole ugly litany. What readers encounter then is a closed, conservative system not only on the pages of The Daily Oklahoman, but also on the pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Of course, The Oklahoman will support launching nukes in Afghanistan to get Osama, of course The Times will send their ringer and careerist Judith Miller to distort and exaggerate to ensure our country starts an illogical war, of course The Post will give Bush a free pass. These monopolies exist to make money; conservative ideology supports monopolies. These newspapers could care less about you, or what you have to say, or what you want to know. Are you against using nukes? Well, then you must be out of the mainstream? Are you against unethical and lazy journalists making up information that allows a dangerous, religious presidential administration to get this country mired in a senseless crusade/war? Then you must be out of the mainstream. Are you perplexed as to why the country’s newspapers will not go after Bush when he lies and lies and lies. Then you must be out of the mainstream.

No, folks, it is the country’s newspapers that are out of the mainstream. They have become conservative, boring, old ugly fuddy-duddies. They are out of touch. They ignore or silence any voice that does not fit into their monopolistic madness and corporate-sanctioned immorality. And their hubris is creating their own demise. Any future or any role hard-copy newspapers may have in the ongoing media revolution will have to backed by the American liberal intelligentsia who actually read, not the morons who get their news from Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly or Fox News. Yet those in charge, as usual, are too ignorant to see it. They support the Fox News crowd, and then say ‘get lost” to people who actually read. Now that is a great business model they need to discuss at the Harvard Business School. It would be a splendid, ironic show to watch newspapers die out—sort like it must have been a real treat to see the old, railroad barons lose out—if so much was not stake right now in this country

Meanwhile, bloggers and independent media websites, such as Salon.com, continue to change the world. It cannot happen soon enough for me, and let us hope it happens soon enough to save American democracy from the quasi-fascists who hope to install a Christian theocracy here.