Thursday, September 18, 2008

Decline and Fall of the Times

First we dump Manhattan, then we dump Berlin.

I suspect many people I don't know and don't know of feel much like I do, that the "mainstream media" is ugly and disgusting, like an old friend who has degenerated into drug-abuse and mental illness, and one who, though a long-time friend, must be cut loose.

I watch now as the New York Times dives into the pavement from such a height, and it is fascinating to watch, the thrill of the up-coming crash something to fear and thrill at. The end of an era, the end of a saga of greatness, and the final end of a toilet rag that the NYT has become. It is also the end of a way of American poseur-thinking, of the Europeanization of America's elitist-wanna-be population.

There must be those conformists who will stay with the failed regardless of all objective conditions, conformity and loyalty and unthinkingness being essential to normal life in communities. There must be unthinking adherence to the failed because otherwise panic would set in at each and every failure and chaos would reign in the short experience of life as Man. People cannot easily give up and change, not in the real world, no matter how terrible conditions are: change is disruptive and terrible for society, and it only comes about slowly and from the reluctant in times of genuine dysfunction. The drag of those who continue to hold fast to the ruined save the revolutionary from causing more harm than one might expect. Too much good all at once is little good. Even revolutionaries need a long period of adjustment to a new reality. So, slowly falls the Times. I'll try to avert my eyes when it hits the ground and splashes across the city and the nation in a gush of muck. And then I'll continue reading news of a better sort.


September 18, 2008

Newspaper death spiral accelerates some more

Thomas Lifson

The decline in advertising revenues at the NYT accelerates again, and now the largest newspaper in New Jersey, the Star-Ledger of Newark, is threatening to shut down next January, if its employees do not voluntarily accept buyouts and unions do not agree to concessions.

Editor & Publisher obtained and posted a copy of the email from the Star-Ledger publisher to employees. See it here.
The NYT is not threatening to close yet, but advertisers are deserting it so fast now that its business model can be considered broken-to-year, advertising revenues for The New York Times Media Group decreased 15.1%.

The panic which must be spreading through the ranks of print journalists can be expected to weaken their hold on mental equanimity.

Expect press misbehavior to accelerate.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/newspaper_death_spiral_acceler.html

1 comment:

Blazingcatfur said...

Tell us how you really feel about the Times Dag;)