I've been a Newsweek reader and subscriber for more than a half
century and of course I haven't always been appreciative of all their
regular columnists. I haven't ever in fact, but none the less,
people like George Will or the current counterpoise to rational
thinking, Niall Furguson, haven't made me cancel my subscription as
I've threatened to do on occasion. But you can't fight progress and you
can't fight the kind of decay progress leaves in its wake and the
magazine that once published some of the best political writing and news
reporting in America has been fighting a losing battle. Advertising
revenue is drying up in the slow economy and advertisers may feel they
get a bigger bang and a bigger audience elsewhere.
The venerable publication was sold last year and combined with The Daily Beast.
Controversial editor in chief Tina Brown, known for saving The New
Yorker a few years back hasn't been able to save Newsweek or stem the
flight of advertising revenue -- or as I might speculate, stem the
rising illiteracy and unwillingness to read objective journalism and I
read this morning that as of the end of this year, Newsweek will cease to put out a print edition. Alas.
I
had been meaning to write this week about the noticeable trend toward
being 'fair and balanced' in Newsweek and indeed almost every other
slowly sinking print publication by including a measure of snarky,
sulfurous vituperation to balance out any accurate reportage or fact
based opinion that will irritate the delusional Right, as if there
actually were two sides to arithmetic or an alternate and opposite
history despite the accuracy of the record. I was going to chastise Ms.
Brown for the October 15th cover story "Heaven is Real" pandering, once
again, to irrational beliefs, but at least for Newsweek, the Mayans
were correct. It's the end of an era.
It may be more
of a dignified end however, than being bought up by Darth Murdoch or
some corporation controlled by the Koch brothers or Karl Rove. They
plan to continue on the Web and I plan to read them but I can't say I
don't have a feeling of loss or a suspicion that the future of
Journalism is not the improvement of journalism but more like a large,
dark cave full of screaming voices.
How will Newsweek survive in Cyberspace? Any mention of a business model? Will it continue operations as a subscription service? Or is this truly its last gasp?
ReplyDeleteI think that it will be a subscription adjunct to The Daily Beast. In many ways it already is with many articles directing you to the web for further information.
ReplyDeleteIt's not so much the last gasp of the print media I fear, it's that it's much harder for the average person with a passing interest in world affairs to discriminate between legitimate journalism, Biased bloggery, dishonest propaganda and malicious fraud on the Web. The Web is too much of a place where you can have your malignant anger petted and abetted and aroused without having to suffer the annoying truth.
Captain,
ReplyDeleteIt never ceases to amaze - or disgust - me the extent to which the American public can be suckered by demagoguery and flimflammery. If my absence from commenting has been noticed, it is because my emotional responses to this political year have been too volatile to venture out in public. I thank you for your commentary: You are my voice. My own voice stammers from sheer outrage.
I cannot help but to observe the truth to what you both say. Unfortunately the conservative movement has, with its neo-con so-con proclivities, pretty much sentenced itself to the ash heap of history. At least in my never humble opinion.
DeleteThe libertarian party, which actually has many positive agenda items is hamstrung by the two party mutually supportive power system. IE: The oligarchs controlling the political and economic scene from behind the curtains (they are the puppet masters). Really, in the larger picture whoever gets elected really doesn't matter. The oligarchs are playing the people like cheap fiddles.
The liberal movement that begin with such promise for mankind in the Age of Reason and Enlightenment has sold it's soul to the devil. With the sale has went the notion that individual rights and the protection of the smallest minority known to man (the individual) is that which deserves the protection of governing bodies.
Yeah, I'm becoming a grand cynic. In my never humble opinion for damn good reason. Perhaps it is why I will not vote for a major party candidate for the presidency. At the very bottom of my pecking order is the New American Fascist rEpublican Party, just behind the New Collectivist dEmocrat Party.
At the top, The Libertarian Party. A protest vote maybe. A complete lack of trust in either major party candidate, ABSOLUTELY.
Thank you in advance for allowing me to vent on your site.
I see your cynicism and I'll raise you one. I think the Libertarian Party has become so extreme that it's so close to anarchy that you can't tell it from chaos. But yes, we're being played, folded, mutilated, spindled and screwed -- and they're good enough at it that most of us enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteI've never been this pessimistic.
Nor have I Capt., nor have I...
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