Avid AdPulp user, Clyde Hogg, points us to a piece on the state of the newspaper business from Fred On Everything. Here are some excerpts:
“The greatest weakness of the American press is moral. Our media are relentlessly, grindingly, hermetically controlled or, as we say, politically correct. Everyone with the brains of an aspirin tablet is aware of it. Newspaper do not so much report the news as avoid it. The taboos are endless and rigid. What reporters know, they do not write; what they write, they do not believe. We all understand exactly what the media can say, can
Here’s Dave Barry’s take:
For what it’s worth, newspapers aren’t the only media vehicle suffering from loss of readership due to the growth of the electronic age. Book publishing is down, and the number of people under the age of 30 that don’t read ANYTHING printed on a page is frightening.
Illiteracy or ignorance will be the result, since few people will bother to investigate or learn anything in depth. The 10-second sound-bite wins out, in the end. Maybe MTV had the right idea: if the audience’s attention span is the equivalent of a cat’s, then program to cats.