And the president has said that he is unequivocally against the Fairness Doctrine. Yet here I am reading Fits saying just the opposite. And you know this. So, given that fact, I’m going to have to go with dishonest.

Bambi’s rich, liberal newpaper buddies are a linin’ up at the trough for some more goodies, paid for by our children and grandchildren.

No wonder Bambi is front-page news every day…

Traditional media is failing because more and more people have stopped reading print news (this trend began long before our current recesssion), and businesses don’t advertise where people don’t go.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/02/AR2005050201457.html

And whether you call it a tax break or a taxpayer-funded bailout, they are still improving their financial standing on the backs of other taxpayers. They would either get government handouts, or they wouldn’t hand over their taxes to the government. Just the same.

I did not say “declining viewership and sagging circulation in the media industry is solely attributable to the recession.”

I said that the financial woes that the newspaper industry is going through are due to the decline in advertising – which is a result of the recession.

Here, read it again: “the financial woes aren’t caused by declining viewership and sagging circulation. The woes are caused by the enormous decrease in advertising revenue due to the deepest recession since the great depression.”

Yes, readership and circulation of the printed product has been on a steady decline. But despite this, the newspaper industry as a whole still reported profit margins ranging from 17-20% until the recession.

“Fits” … you want to resort to name calling. Truth is, you come across like an idiot with a narrow mind and the opinion to match.

Thanks for the exhortation but we have “a clue.” Several of them, in fact.

Seriously, if you think the declining viewership and sagging circulation in the media industry is solely attributable to the recession, you obviously have never seen the Post Hoc Ergo Proptor Hoc episode of Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” (kinda surprising for a leftist apologist such as yourself).

Here’s a clue, numbnuts … circulation was plummeting long before the current recession because of a fundamental shift in consumer preference (i.e. more people are getting their news online now). The recession has only exacerbated the decline of the traditional media, but to assume that it caused it is misology.

Also, the last time we checked non-profits and not-for-profits got all sorts of government handouts and tax breaks, hence Obama’s “make sure it’s paid for” reference.

If you think that taxpayers won’t ultimately pay for this then you’re deluding yourself … perhaps intentionally.

Thanks for playing, though …

-FITS

P.S. – You did get one thing right, though. This damn skippy is the “kind of blog” Obama is talking about. And f*cking proud of it.

Another argument that sucks moose roots is, “Newspapers are the ones that do all the investagative reporting and without newspapers, who’s keeping tabs on government and public officials?”

It wasn’t until the early ’70s that newspapers became the investigative reporters of record. Before the ’70s, it was news magazines like Time and Newsweek.

Investigative reporting is now up to broadcast media and internet news sites. We might have less of that kind of reporting short term but as long as we have politicians we’ll have politicians screwing three time left of the wind.

… “rewarded his sycophantic media darlings with a taxpayer-funded bailout to ease the financial woes caused by declining viewership and sagging circulation.”

Get your facts straight.

It’s not a taxpayer-funded bailout. The president said he would be happy to look at bills before Congress that would give news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.

This is different than a handover of taxpayer dollars.

Secondly, the financial woes aren’t caused by declining viewership and sagging circulation. The woes are caused by the enormous decrease in advertising revenue due to deepest recession since the great depression.

More people want to stay informed now more than ever. And the number of those seeking the news online is growing by leaps and bounds.

This brings me to my last point: Who do you think provides the news that folks read online?

Look closely at the credits, and you will see that the majority of news content on the web is written by journalists in the newsrooms of newspapers across the country. You didn’t actually think that Google or Yahoo staffs their own reporters did you?

Get a clue.