End of an Era; Beginning of a New One

Truly a sad loss.

Wow, I haven’t read it for a long time, but I remember it as a surprisingly well-written, smart, objective paper.
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Maybe that was where they went wrong.

Today, you hear calls for the same improvements in the media, which has come to be dominated again by those “commercial and political monopolists.”

KT,

Your previous post about health care reform and the important part of your story that didn’t make the “cut” for the dead tree edition, speaks volumes about the state of modern journalism. “Old Media” face enough challenges in the age of the internet revolution. The internet has been useful in informing the people about the credibility (or lack thereof)of our media institutions. The more people become informed, the more they realize that our (media) emperor has no clothes. As long as this trend continues, the old media institutions will continue to fall.

Perhaps if you could come up with an outlet for real investigative journalism, honest reporting, and challenging, evidenced-based opinion I think you could charge subscription prices and get them if subscribers would be guaranteed a news source devoid of self-interest aside from being an outlet speaking the truth regardless of who benefits and who loses.
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I was only half-heartedly joking in an earlier comment about enabling us as a society to publicly shun anyone who failed to leave their self-interest at the door, but we should at least be able to provide a model that following the immortal words of Maddow by “privileging correct information over incorrect information.”
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The assumption of the bean counters and the marketing gurus is that the public wont pay for an online version of the news, what they failed to consider is that the public won’t pay for any version of the news because it’s the content not the mode of distribution that’s responsible for their objection. People who can get television for free still donate to public television because they get a product they can’t get anywhere else and the same can be said about cable.
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Perhaps the news organizations will have to morph into itunes like entities and fund their reporters, columnists and editorial writers, etc., and as a subscriber I can put together the daily dose of information I want to read and the cost will depend on what I chose to include in my download. You want to keep me as a reader choosing to include you in my “daily dose” (I like that term so if anyone decides to use it they should have to pay me a small royalty), then give me a better product. At least that would be one way to turn every member of the media into a critic and rethink the crap they write about before posting.

My impression of the CSMonitor was of it standing out during the Iraq war run up for its thoroughness and depth. Do I need to mention that I was reading it online as a result of individual articles being link targets?

My dad was the editor/publisher of a string of small-town weeklies in the Housatonic River valley back in the 1960s and 70s, and he read the CSM every day, preferring it to the NY Times (he said the Times was “too local”).

“place principle before dividends, and that will be fair, frank and honest with the people on all subjects and under whatever pressure — a truly independent voice not controlled by commercial and political monopolists.”

Wait, isn’t that what Fox News is?

If Fox News was a print edition think of how well informed, well adjusted, and morally upstanding the parakeets of this nation would be.

I read CSM throughout high school. Great paper.

Bottom line: we can no longer trust American corporations to report the news and it doesn’t matter if it’s in print, on teevee or on the web.
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‘Mr. Cuomo argued that banks and appraisers had colluded to push prices higher. It is a marker of how swiftly the culture has changed that his charges, which now are received wisdom, struck Mr. Cramer in 2007 as the words of, well a …
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“Communist. Cuomo’s about confiscation — genuine communist,” Mr. Cramer said. “The Chinese are capitalist, we got a communist.” Can I give you the real headline?” Mr. Cramer said. “Cuomo says let’s make it harder to get a mortgage, let’s make it harder to lend.”‘
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/was-cuomo-appraisal-another-cramer-miscue/#more-16023
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KT, thanks so much for this post.

It’s frustrating at how awful the MSM is. We have more news sources than ever and yet the very competition has driven them into being nothing but pushers of the Village memes. Politico is a piece of crap. CNN is so horrified of being perceived as being “liberal” that its usefullness for actually becoming informed has been greatly diminished.

The Christian Science folks used to have libraries in SF with all the daily papers on racks (and lots of books) and it was a fun place to visit from time to time. Don’t know when they stopped doing that though. I have very fond memories of that place.

EMT: “Quick – we have to get this man to a hospital!”
Victim: “But I’m a Christian Scientist!’
EMT: “Quick – we have to get this man to a reading room!”
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Seriously, I agree entirely – a newspaper with the primary purpose of gathering and disseminating accurate information. What a concept!

This is a provocative piece: http://michellemalkin.com/2009/03/27/did-canadacare-kill-natasha-richardson/

Is this what we want to return to, journalistically? Post-like tabloidism?

Now, obviously, these questions need to be asked–just not so “in your face”.

Southernbelle: It’s frustrating at how awful the MSM is. Speaking of which, here is a “serious” reporter from the Washinghton Post demonstrating that the rot isn’t just a cable teevee phenomenon. I’ll ask in advance if KT is embarrassed by this. Via Media Matters: Gibbs ridicules media’s teleprompter obsession
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Washington Post reporter Lois Romano interviews White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:

MS. ROMANO: The teleprompter changed last night.

MR. GIBBS: Mm-hmm.

MS. ROMANO: What was that about that? It’s a big jumbotron now.

MR. GIBBS: You know can I tell you this?

MS. ROMANO: Yes.

MR. GIBBS: I am absolutely amazed that anybody in America cares about who the President picks at a news conference or the mechanism by which he reads his prepared remarks. You know, I guess America is a wonderful country.

MS. ROMANO: You’re saying this is all Washington Beltway stuff?

MR. GIBBS: I don’t even know if it’s that. I don’t think I should implicate the many people that live in Washington.

MR. GIBBS: No, I you know, I don’t think the President let me just say this: My historical research has demonstrated that the President is not the first to use prepared remarks nor the first to use a teleprompter.

wvng, I’m so depressed now at the state of the American media that I need to go and find a nice kitteh diary to make me smile.

“CNN is so horrified of being perceived as being “liberal” that its usefullness for actually becoming informed has been greatly diminished.”

CNN is liberal. I mean, really, any news network that consistently labels Roman Polanski as an exile (vice fugitive) is just that. In any event, CNN lost all credibility when it traded objectivity for access in Iraq.

I bet Gibbs would rather have those questions than tough ones from Jake Tapper.

A very intelligent elderly woman I know was telling me today how much she likes the short little summaries on the front page of the Burlington Free Press now, so she doesn’t have to read “those long articles to see what they’re about.” sigh.
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But in fairness, although I read a few long articles in the NYT and Wapo every day, there are hundreds of articles I don’t read at all. And I no longer get my local paper.
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There has a to be a solution to this dilemma. We need investigative reporting. Some of the net sites will have to start charging again. Why should I get major newspapers for free, and if I do why should I pay for dead tree editions?
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jose: – ditto for the CS reading room in Albany, NY.

And here’s some more bad journalism from WaPo. This piece is agenda journalism at its worst:
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020403852.html

CNN is so horrified of being perceived as being “liberal” that its usefullness for actually becoming informed has been greatly diminished.
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I disagree. I think CNN is so desperate for eyeballs that you actually become less informed by watching it. (And what on Earth has Roman Polanski got to do with liberal vs. conservative categorizations?) It comes across more as pro-moron than liberal or conservative.
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I never did see Idiocracy. Maybe it’d look like a documentary by now.
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I used to subscribe to the CSM. A fine paper. I hope they can continue to be a source of solid reporting.

Elvis, one great litmus test for lib leaning is how a news organization deals with criminals. See, e.g., Dallas Morning News and Kenneth Foster.

wvng — sosuthernbell — I think Mr. Gibbs may be wrong about one thing. I think a lot of folks in side Washington did take notice of who the President chose to take questions from in the conference, and they loved it.
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For the first time in history probably, Ebony magazine, a publication that is a mainstay in darn near every black home in America, was chosen to pose a question to the first African American president of the United States. Talk about optics, in the black community this was huge.
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But you know what else is huge, and has not been discussed yet on any of the posts since the press conference, is how racists some of the main stream media’s statements have been in regards to this issue. Actually saying that these reporters were not real reporters, sounded eerily like something Sara Palin might say.
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So I have to ask, when I hear the media complain that by shutting out the NY Times, the Washington Post, USA today, etc. the President was really shutting out America’s elite reporters, the only ones that would ask tough questions, the only real reporters, etc. should I take offense? I mean really is Ebony magazine inferior because it is a magazine, a black magazine, has black reporters, what?
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Granted, putting this kind of focus on politics is a new course for the magazine, but does newness automatically translate to inferior or illegitimacy and if it did, what is newness mean exactly? Ebony magazine has been the number one source of print journalism in the African American home for generations, the relatively recent focus on electoral politics is because this is the first time their core audience has been this engaged in the process and has felt like primary stakeholders, not because they just open their doors.
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Now I am willing to give the media the benefit of the doubt maybe — especially if they hurry up and apologize for this misunderstanding. But I still think as a groups they are a bunch of low lifes because I haven’t heard anyone of them say that it is despicable for them to pick with the President because he put his family ahead of the gridiron dinner.

“the President was really shutting out America’s elite reporters, the only ones that would ask tough questions, the only real reporters, etc.”
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Dee the deeper irony is that the Ebony reporter’s- Kevin Chappell-question was the one that BHO chose to punt on.

PNNTO — isn’t that truly ironic? My only wish is that more of them would watch daytime television so they could recognize real crazies when they see them (look in the mirror).

Dee: I would disagree that the President has “shut out” mainstream reporters. In fact, the NYT, for instance, has actually gotten at least one exclusive interview with Obama of late. He did 60 Minutes, has done the Sunday shows. I think people are making too much of who he calls on at a news conference, which–let’s face it–is treated by both the White House and the media largely as theater.

He’s also doing “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

Let’s see if the Face the Nation interview has the guts to ask him about Rahm.

Oh no you misunderstood me. This wasn’t my idea, it was the conversation on cable yesterday. Susan Page and I forgot who else was with Shuster complained that Obama shut out the elites at the press conference and in favor of softball questions of people that weren’t real reporters like Ebony magazine. Apparently it’s a bad idea to give everyone a chance, according to Susan Obama would be better served by sticking with the elite reporters who would ask tougher questions. I’m just wondering if when they called out Ebony magazine by name and said they weren’t real reporters if they were aware of how it would sound to black folks listening to the exchange.

Journalism needs to be decoupled from the drive to create profits. Like highways and scientific research, it’s something that will likely never make money in and of itself, but it’s too fundamental to our society to let slip.

Dee: I think it’s great, and it does send a message. BTW: Word around here is that Essence, which is part of the far-flung Time Inc. empire, is transferring several people down here to DC full-time. We are moving to new bureau space in June, and I heard third-hand that we are saving office space for them. Which will be terrific. (People Mag shut down their part of our bureau a few years back, and we’ve had layoffs, so it is getting lonely around here for Time and Fortune.)

Dee
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I would point out that although I love Shuster’s show, he and Susan Page were absolutely wrong yesterday at least about the regional papers issue. President Obama had a round table interview with several regional papers a on March 12th and he had another roundtable with different regional papers right before the press conference this week. In fact I put a post up about his interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal.
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http://smoothlikeremy.blogspot.com/2009/03/singing-is-over-now-comes-swinging.html

LOL Great new ad from the DNC about the House Republican “budget”
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Thanks KT — that’s great news and frnakly makes a lot of sense. I noticed during the campaign that they conducted a joint poll with with CNN. I think now that the black audience is so engaged in politics it makes sense that the premier black magazines put more foocus in this area. I just hope that other media members see it that way rather than let petty jealousies and turf battles blow up. I’m pretty sure that Susan and the other guest did not mean anything racial by what they said, not intentionally anyway. but intentions won’t really matter if they get caught in that kind of crossfire. I hope they tone down that not real reporters rhetoric.

This is interesting re: Emanuel. Perhaps those journalists at Ebony or Essence will ask Obama about this:

http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2009/03/rahm-emanuel-former-investment-coughscoundrelcough-banker.html

And of course, didn’t that reporter, in his big chance to ask a question of the One parrot a press release from a liberal advocacy group:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/03/27/obama-gives-credence-bogus-homeless-stat-media-has-never-challenged

Yeah, a real “journalist”.

Mickey Kaus explodes the 1 in 50 stat:

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http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/archive/2009/03/25/kf-s-bs-detector-explodes.aspx

Yeah, that journalist had oodles of credibility.

Why would the reporters from Ebony or Essence ask Obama about this spob? Do yo think black reporters are any less capable than their white counterparts of distinguishing between right wing supposition and empirical evidence?

SG — I love Shusters show too. He’s the only one aside from Olberman and Maddow willing to challenge incorrect information. But who was the other guy in the conversation I can’t remember and he was the one who said the “real reporter” line.
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BTW, have you heard that your boy Harry Reid is telling the left to back off the conservadems, that going after them is not the way to get them to go with Obama’s agenda. What a crock!

Well, Dee, Obama was “outraged” by the AIG bonuses, but Rahm’s ghost employment, er board seat, not so much. Oh, that’s right, my bad, hypocrisy is only a problem if you’re a Rethuglican who cheats on his wife.

And as for Rahm making millions as an investment banker, well, gee, doesn’t that pretty much sum up the problem? Why do you think these banks pay this kind of jack–because they are the targets of government regulation. Obama campaigned against the purchase of access etc. etc.

Now I have zero problem with people making coin. None. But when big companies buy off politically connected people, there has to be a quid pro quo. Maybe it’s a “we won’t shake you down” a la Al Gore immediately after the plane crash when he was named to be head of some committee and immediately asked for donations. Or maybe it’s an ally when you don’t want your carry to be taxed as ordinary income. My point, Dee, is that if you are going to grow the government, you’re going to get these kinds of things, and they aren’t really all that seemly. And it’s got the imprimatur of the US government, which makes it a problem. And journalists should be asking these questions. The budget grows and grows, as does the regulatory state, and there are more and more opportunities for juiced-in people to cash in on our nickel or by being able to influence where our nickel goes. Obama wasn;t all that fond of the K Street project–well, what does Rahm’s salary look like–the purchase of a player with influence. And is that influence used strictly in accordance with the public interest.

No. Get that right. Amazing how you libs will turn on a dime.

Dee
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Yeah I heard that about Harry Reid but I think some of the progressive blogs jumped on a GOPolitico grenade instead of thinking it through or looking for context. This is how it was written up in HuffPo.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/27/reid-knocks-liberals—-a_n_180028.html

And while I am at it Dee, what is so annoying about most libs is that you will think the absolute worst about many people, US servicemen, cops, prosecutors, employers, but the systemic problem of access, payoffs etc. inherent in a huge regulatory state which incentivize people to cash in and engage in rent-seeking behavior is just a non-issue.

And this is not just a Dem thing, Hastert enriched friends etc. Look at Ashcroft’s government contracts.
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Obama campaigned against this crap. His whole campaign was based on a theme of a higher purpose. But that’s all a bunch of crap. You know it; I know it. It’s a systemic problem. But what makes it very bad is the fact that the government takes, at gunpoint, your money. So politically connected players get their “taste”. And the bigger the government is, the more taste there is. And there’s not thing one we can do about it.

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Now, of course, this kind of stuff is always going to be around. But when the government is involved in picking winners and losers, well, you’ll see a lot more of it. Libs don’t care. But they’ll tell us all the time how much more enlightened they are.

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I mean for crying out loud, that SOB Dick Durbin will equate 19 year old soldiers to ruthless Pol Pot guards, but will say nothing about the sleaze inherent in big government.

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Exit question, if the AIG bonuses are so “outrageous”, why wasn’t John Conyers’ failure to pay tax on the service he coerced from government employees?

Sen Cardin’s proposal to allow newspapers to become non-profits might have some merit. If it had a semi ad supported/PBS fundraising model and it was run just to break even, I think this might keep print going longer.

yeah, trifecta, let’s give a bunch of liberal entities a leg up . . . . . No thanks.

By liberal, you mean fact based right spob?

“fact-based” is a malleable concept. This piece is arguably fact-based, but it’s agenda journalism at its worst.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020403852.html

“And while I am at it Dee, what is so annoying about most libs is that you will think the absolute worst about many people, US servicemen, cops, prosecutors, employers . . . .”

My bad. I forgot to mention the two groups of people who can do no wrong in the lib universe–trial lawyers and death row inmates.

And by the way, Dee, still supporting the clawback of AIG bonuses?

Spob:
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Plain and simple. EZ as a 1040 single filer.
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Look at my peers:
FDR
JFK
Obama
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Look at your peers:
Reagan
Bush I
Bush II
Rush Limbaugh
John Hannity
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Now, forgive me, but you talk us down, but looking at your guys, I have this assessment to make:
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None of yours are historic figures. None of your guys have much in the way of intellect.
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And certainly, recalling this bit ‘o carp:
” you will think the absolute worst about many people…”
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And I recall Palin rallies with the inestimable slogan ‘Kill Him’ directed at an American Presidential candidate.
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I recall the WaPo cartoon. I recall the Great White Whale, whose ceegar you smoke relentlessly, and I think to myself:
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Now, ain’t this a bit of the pot calling the kettle black?
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It is the actions of your party that has indeed brought out the absolute worst in employers, but those others, that’s only in your mind.
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After all, spob, only the GOP has brought the art of the Dogwhistle Death Threat against a sitting president to a high art…

And spob, it’s really hard to mouth the words “I hope Obama fails!” when you have the Great White Whales’ ceegar* in it!
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*Penile member. Remember, FYI, Rush Limbaugh not only has been in trouble over Oxycontin, he’s been in trouble over Viagra, too.

Now with salesmen like that spob, how can you fail to appeal to the American people…

Now I know why Rush had trouble over Viagra:
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The Repbulicans aren’t sucking hard enough!

FDR, the man who extended the depression?

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JFK? He gets an incomplete, although I liked his tax policy and sticking up for Joe McCarthy.

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Obama? How many days in office?

And the “kill him” stuff was waaaaaaaaay overblown, and given the unceasing Kill Bush rhetoric, you’re in no position to talk.

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And it’s not fair you pinning Hannity on me . . . . The guy’s a hack. I don’t pin Olbermann on you. And can I just say, for the record, I loathe Bill O’Reilly. And I don’t listen to Rush. When you make fun of 13 year old girls, without apology, you take yourself out of legitimate discourse. Newt has same issue, given his treatment of his cancer-stricken wife.

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And 53_3, you know and I know you know that huge government simply allows more politically connected players to peddle influence and protection to business interests. It’s a problem, and Rahm Emanuel (along with Hastert and as many Republicans you wanna name) is emblematic of the problem.

And 53_3, you guys already lost your cred with yapping about KT doing a blog post about Emanuel. Face it, you’re an ideologue. A smart one, no doubt, given your vast knowledge of the Earth’s natural history (my knowledge of it is less than yours, but, of course, mine is only gleaned from a few Discovery Channel shows and knowledge of basic chem and physics). But you have blinders on, and it makes you look silly.

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Even if some crackpot did say “kill him”, and it’s by no means clear that happened, so what? We have whackjobs in this country, like, for example, the nutcases celebrating the deaths of the Oakland cops. We have David Duke. And Klansmen. And Mechistas (oops, sorry, they’re patriots).

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You can try to point to people like Hannity. I can point to your president, a man who talks in terms of a “typical white person”, a man who is comfortable around people like Jeremiah Wright, a man who deemed himself inspired by a sermon which contains the racist and trite “white folks’ greed runs a world in need”, a man who claims to want to lead a national conversation on race, but then says nothing about appalling racist violence going on in Southern California, and who will euphemize a vicious six-on-one racially-motivated assault on a white high school student as a “schoolyard fight”. And I forgot his “that’s how white folks will do you” comment. There’s no justification for any of it. And oh, by the way, now that we’re talking about political associations and what they mean, you guys own Al Sharpton. Remember, he shared a stage with mainstream Dems in 2004 as a presidential candidate. He called the Central Park Jogger a “whore”. (Of course, Obama saw fit to lunch with him.) Of course, no journalists during the 2004 campaign had the stones to ask whether sharing a podium with such a guy was appropriate. (And don’t forget, the GOP punished Trent Lott and brought up Ron Paul’s nonsense. And Pat “whites are more American” Buchanan is a punchline in our party.)

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And of course, your guy, continuing his bad manners, decides to try to make some political hay out of the Red River floods. Too bad they’re amplified by the fact that that part of the country was a lot colder than normal. A crass moron.

Exit question, 53_3, why do you think the Jena Six were more important to Obama than, say, Cheryl Green?

Here’s a better question, why did Democratic presidential candidates share a stage with Al Sharpton without saying anything about his appalling comment that the Central Park Jogger was a “whore”. Gee, how strong a commitment to female equality do they have?

At least Jerry Falwell apologized for his segregationalist past.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTM3ZmI0MDA2ZjM5OWRkZDk5N2Y1Njk3NDkzZmE1NDY=

Enjoy . . . . .

[...] It’s a shame to see the Christian Science Monitor wrap up its print [...]

By the way, spob, nobody but the True Wingnuts believes that colossal lie about FDR “extending” the Depression. It’s an interesting but fundamentally dishonest GOP attempt to rewrite history, and only fundamentally dishonest people or outright fools are still trying to spread it. Jonah Goldberg and his habitual name-calling is about the worst of the lot.

spob –
Me again. I’ve been looking for verification of your claim about Sharpton and the jogger. So far, nothing from an even arguably credible source. Got anything to back that up – other than right wing echo chamber jabbering?

http://www.creators.com/opinion/larry-elder/duane-dog-chapman-s-racist-bark.html

Your party guys. Your party. He actually shared a stage with so-called feminists and not a single one of them denounced this. Not a one. And no one in the media had the stones to call them out.

“Here’s a better question, why did Democratic presidential candidates share a stage with Al Sharpton without saying anything about his appalling comment that the Central Park Jogger was a “whore”.
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Spob maybe it was a form of affirmative action. After all every Senator in the senate and every congressman and political appointee has shared a stage with John McCain who thought at one time that a women being raped by an ape was a pretty funny joke. Having said that the stage can be a pretty lonely place

spob:
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I’m too sick to effectively weigh in here. Damn.
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Re: “FDR extended the Great Depression” talking point, spob is talking about this UCLA study.
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Unfortunately, (remarkably labeled “non-partisan”) liberal David Sirota gives a weak, unlinked rebuttal of this notion here.
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Effectively (and honestly) refuting this argument runs into the problem that FDR was not the Lord Jesus Christ, and not every experiment was good for the country nor ameliorated economic conditions. Some of his policies were bad –very, very f*cking bad ideas that originated in socialist economic theory. Some of his policies did extend the Great Depression. The policies that did the most harm were either applications of state-capitalism –socialism– or premature returns to laissez-faire.
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One of those terrifyingly bad policies was the (scary fascist logo-ed) NRA’s mandate to essentially suspend anti-trust legislation, and empower private big-business cartels to set prices. Why would any rational economist advise the state to choose their favorite (the biggest and richest) industrial titans, let them get together to set prices and production codes, and essentially lock out smaller entrepreneurs from markets?
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Because these wizards/ideologues/plutocrats/experimenters reasoned that the cause of price deflation was “excessive competition”, without truly taking into account the kind of horror-show inefficiencies –and outright injustices– that state-sanctioned monopoly is guaranteed to produce (something we should take into account as we talk about the public option in Health Care Reform).
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That sort of “national” and “socialist” (why does that sound so familiar?) economic policy really did muck up markets (and lives) enough to extend the Depression.
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The thing is, though, that the return to a “balanced budget” framework extended the Great Depression even more than the socialist (fascist?) crazy stuff.
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The interruption of the Roosevelt Recovery in 1937-1938 is, I think, wel understood: Roosevelt’s decision to adopt more “orthodox” economic policies and try to move the budget toward balance and the Federal Reserve’s decision to contract the money supply by raising bank reserve requirements provide ample explanation of that downturn. And once those two factors had run its course the continuation of Roosevelt’s policies was no obstacle to an investment recovery driven by war-related exports monetary expansion produced by capital flight from Europe.

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A return to spending as stimulus:
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Ignoring the requests of the Treasury Department and responding to the urgings of the converts to Keynesian economics and others in his Administration, Roosevelt embarked on an antidote to the depression, reluctantly abandoning his efforts to balance the budget and launching a $5 billion spending program in the spring of 1938, an effort to increase mass purchasing power.[47]

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…and even more spending:
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The Depression continued with decreasing effect until the U.S. entered the Second World War. Under the special circumstances of war mobilization, massive war spending doubled the GNP (Gross National Product)[50] Civilian unemployment was reduced from 14% in 1940 to less than 2% in 1943 as the labor force grew by ten million. Millions of farmers left marginal operations, students quit school, and housewives joined the labor force. The effect continued into 1946, the first postwar year, where federal spending remained high at $62 billion (30% of GNP).

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So spob, the Keynesian policies of FDR didn’t extend the Great Depression, and it’s really disingenuous of anyone to argue that FDR’s policies as a whole either created or prolonged the country’s sufferings. Specific policies were mind-bogglingly bad, however, with the the worst (in economic terms, not necessarily social terms) being the return to conservative policies.
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But Commenters, in the interest of honest inquiry and policy discussion, we have an obligation ourselves not to take FDR’s policies as a whole and declare the triumph of everything that he did, as if he were a Reagan-cult hero, and not a politician in times of great (and new) trouble.
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We have to ask ourselves during this financial crisis: Which Obama policies seem closest to what we know worked about the New Deal, and which seem to recall the dark, monopolistic, state-and-crony-capitalist back-room dealing of FDR’s worst programs?
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In other words, what about the bank bailout program (for example) –with its Treasury-selected “bidders” and FDIC-chosen “sellers” participating in an otherwise unimaginable toxic asset “auction” –resembles liberalism, and what resembles national socialism?

Gysgt, well, a joke, even in poor taste, is NOTHING like calling a rape victim a whore. And Sharpton hasn;t apologized.
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You guys still wanna play guilt by association? How ’bout ex-Mechista Cruz “N-word” Bustamante.

This started out as a lament for the end of a print publication. the discussion has gone into different points of view of the same events by people with different political viewpoints. I think the take home message is that many news consumers want access to news outlets that confirms their political convictions. Fox has a ratings bonanza with Glenn Beck. MSNBC has gained ratings over CNN. Olbermann and Maddow make MSNBC more liberal than CNN.

The future for news in the US will likely be more tuned to specific political groups. MSNBC may become the counter to Fox News. Fox openly criticizes other news outlets, MSNBC appears to be the only one ready to respond in kind. we may follow the British model with clearly Liberal and clearly Conservative news outlets.

Newspapers suffer from being outdated as soon as print hits the page. The internet allows stories to be constantly updated and provides links to related subjects. Devices like the Kindle 2 (or it’s mobile software like that used on iPhone and iTouch) or electronic paper will be used to transmit the constantly evolving story news format of the future.

Will the electronic paper be handed out as a lost leader by news organizations, or will Kindle style software be used on cellphones of all varieties? Time will tell. Newspapers, like books will be more and more electronic than paper. There is likelihood of profit for e-books since print costs have risen. Where is the profit for news?