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[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I stopped reading the local paper 2-3 years ago. Then the other day I noticed something: The paper has fired many of its rabid liberal columnists.

Our other daily went thru a similar sanitizing process after it hired a team of soccer moms to write and print feel-good news. The editorial pages filled with prom news and girl scout cookie sales and reunion alerts for wives who served overseas with their military husbands. The paper collapsed and was bought by a new corporation.

 

[ms_ann_thrope]

What's a "paper"?

 

[oggbashan]

Our local papers - two paid for and one freebie - are largely funded by their advertising revenue, and that is mainly from Estate Agents and Car dealers.

Over the last decade the quantity of news that relates to our specific town has reduced and now most of the news is about the three (or four) towns covered by the group edition. The freebie is now generic and covers all three towns in an identical issue.

The circulation of the paid-for papers has dropped by about a third in the last decade from an already low base. The movers and shakers in the three towns complain that nobody reads about causes or events they are involved in. Why should they complain? The only people who actually read the newspapers are the movers and shakers - looking for reports of their activities, columns and letters to the Editor that they write.

Our local TV and Radio stations cover too wide an area to be of use to locals. Any real information gets circulated by the internet - email, facebook etc. for the older generation and text message for the younger.

Within the next decade I expect our local newspapers to be history.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

What's a "paper"?

Ask Byron.

 

[ms_ann_thrope]

Ask Byron.

Thought I did.