Journal Sentinel: Clinging to the old business model

by folkbum

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today gives prominent place to an op-ed originally run in last Sunday's Washington Post, and since reprinted far and wide, by Bruce Sanford and Bruce Brown.

Of course, not every op-ed in the paper reflects the opinion of the newspaper itself; however, given the topic of this one, its prominence in the paper version and online, and other evidence available, I suspect that the publishers and the editors feel the message of this one is worth driving home.

The gist of the op-ed is this: Newspapers are dying, threatening the very institution of journalism, and therefore Congress should create new revenue streams for them.

If you think I'm kidding about that, I'm not. The Bruces are quite explicit that innovations such as Google and blogging are the source of newspapers' declining revenues and those sources ought to be either restricted or start paying for online news content. The Bruces demand tax breaks for newspapers and advertisers who use them. They want even looser media ownership rules, because, apparently, "too big to fail" worked so well for banks and automakers.

The good thing for me about this op-ed's having been first published a week ago is that a lot of the heavy lifting against the arguments made here has already been done. See, for example, new-media mogul Markos Moulitsas, who (f-bomb alert if you click through) dismantles the argument that Google has anything to do with newspapers' falling revenue. (See also Duncan Black.) A guy named Mark Gritter lays into the ideas from the op-ed here, including one stupid idea that would essentially copyright facts, not merely content. Some other guy named Patrico Robles argues that the Bruces completely miss the point: Congress should be working to save journalism, not one medium.

There is no question that good journalism needs to be saved, and that newspapers have been and remain one of the most important places for that journalism to happen. I, for one, could not do what I do without the local newspaper. (That had been a point of contention for some bloggers, though, going back years.) I do not want to see the kind of journalism done down on 3rd & State dry up.

I have a great deal of sympathy for the challenges the local paper faces: online ad revenue is much lower than print ad revenue, even as circulation falls. Craigslist decimated the personal ads. Online sites like Monster hurt job ad revenues. (MJS was foresightful enough to team up with a job-serach site and a auto-trader style site.) With real estate and the auto industry in the tank, even those ad revenues have fallen. And now the state is letting local governments pull out their notices, too.

Notice what all of that is about there: Ad revenue. Readers alone have never been able to sustain newspapers. (Or any medium for that matter; how much money does, say, CNN collect from you when you watch?) The New York Times proved pretty spectacularly that readers won't pay for online content, so newspapers should not count on that supporting them, either. With falling ad revenues, newspapers need a new business model, not Congressional protection.

I don't know what that business model is. It may well be that it may not involve paper anymore for most of the stories newspapers do.

What I do know is that the world of journalism is rapidly being redefined, and the news organizations that can find new ways to succeed amidst the changes will be the ones not clinging to hope that Congress solves their problems for them.

NYT's Rich Wrong to Hit Hillary/ Obama on Iraq War

via MAL Contends
Madison, Wisconsin—Frank Rick has a piece in this morning’s Times arguing that Obama and Hillary “are flat-out wrong” in condemning John McCain for McCain's allegedly having expressed a willingness “… to keep this (Iraq) war going for 100 years,” as the two Democrats on the campaign trail state their desire for withdrawal, contra McCain.

Rich, among the most perceptive columnists today, cites other writers and fact checkers making the same point, including Zachary Roth in the Columbia Journalism Review.

So what are McCain’s words about the U.S. occupation/war made at a town meeting in January, and repeated since?

Video of McCain saying “10,000 years” in Iraq with permanent bases on Face the Nation and Meet the Press


Said McCain, “Make it a hundred (in Iraq). ... We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as American, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. It’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting and equipping and motivating people every single day."

Writes the CJR’s Roth, “It’s clear from this that McCain isn’t saying he’d support continuing the war for one hundred years, only that it might be necessary to keep troops there that long.”

What?

Rich, though he goes on to blast McCain and the Neocon enablers on other points, chides the Democrats on the 100-year war point, writing: “…The sum total of (McCain’s) public record suggests that he could well prolong the war for another century — not because he’s the crazed militarist portrayed by Democrats, but through sheer inertia, bad judgment and blundering.”

What, how again are Hillary and Obama "flat-out wrong"?

McCain predicates his anti-withdrawal position on a lie—that troops can remain in Iraq without being injured, harmed or wounded—and McCain's conclusion, that of a multi-decade-long occupation, should be taken as a commitment for a multi-decade-long occupation that will be justified by still more lies.

If you have US troops in Iraq, they will remain targets. McCain is simply throwing a bone to the public in his conditional reference (taken as fact, and not a lie, without challenge by the fact checkers) to maintain "...as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

No doubt, Rich and the fact checkers, having blasted Hillary and Obama for their critiques of McCain, will point to McCain's pursuit of withdrawal, for full context. No, they don't.

Then Rich and company will point to McCain's candid acknowledgement of the Neocon enterprise in Iraq, for full context? No, they don't.

Perhaps Rich and company will at least point to McCain's rejection of permanent bases, a super permanent embassy, and McCain's commitment to Iraqi control over their own natural resources. Wrong again.

Let's acknowledge that McCain's statement is compound-complex and not a model of clarity. Indeed, the statement is predicated on false premises and lies.

But reading Rich and the fact checkers we are to believe ".... only that it might be necessary to keep troops (in Iraq) that long,” (Roth) and that "...(McCain’s) public record suggests that he could well prolong the war for another century ... through sheer inertia, bad judgment and blundering;” (Rich); but Hillary and Obama's charges that McCain wants to keep the war going for 100 years are nevertheless bogus.

What has happened to Rich and Roth on this one?

Bush, McCain and Neocons don't want out; they want a client oil state, and they will commit troops there as long it takes to establish such a geopolitical agent, while spewing the WMD, al Qaeda, regional stability, and whatever other justification they come up with for however long this Neocon propaganda will hold up.

So Obama and Hillary are spot-on to blast McCain for his 100-year, one-million-year (whatever time comes to his mind) idiocies.

Their criticism accurately reflects his anti-withdrawal commitment and accurately reflects his pro-war statement.

Again, McCain predicates his anti-withdrawal position on lies—that troops can remain in Iraq without being injured, harmed or wounded, (and let's not forget that al Qaeda and Islamofascism are the threat in Iraq)—and McCain's conclusion, that of a multi-decade-long occupation, should be taken a commitment for a multi-decade-long occupation that will be justified by still more lies.

Rich and the fact checkers ought to give this affair a rethink.