A 150 year old newspaper is out of business in Colorado. Basic reporting includes the questions of who, what, when, why and how. The Rocky Mountain News had served Denver for 150 years. This past week it published it's final edition. The reason for its demise is simple: money. But why? They were "Doing it right" for 150 years, right?
Well, here's what I think. The media needs an audience. If it has a substantial audience, it can profit with revenue from advertisers. Both are needed. If the audience numbers slip, the advertising revenue will slip too! Advertising agencies keep an eye on these things. Who's to blame? TV? The Internet? Society? Upper management at the paper? The answer is yes, all of the above. Things change. The press has been getting "bad press." I don't think we necessarily believe what we read. So why should we read it? I'm in the car business. The car ads in our local newspaper are so misleading that it doesn't make any sense to advertise! The newspapers could crack down on the car dealership(s) who lie in their ads, but they don't want to bite the hand that is feeding them.
I like to read the obituaries and the letters to the editor. The obits in my local paper (almost) never tell of the cause of death. This would violate the how and why of basic journalism, but what the hell do I know? I'm just writing a blog post on a Sunday morning.
Thank you for reading this, especially if you are in the Denver area - at least you're reading something.
