Free Newspapers
By David Glenn Cox
Yesterday as I went to get groceries there was a woman standing out in front of the store with a little table. She asked, “Would you like to receive a free newspaper?” At first I answered, “No,” but then thinking about shipping packages UPS I reconsidered and asked, “What do I have to do?”
“Just sign up for home delivery Monday through Thursday, or Sunday only.” I was wearing my best behavior so I didn’t want to tell her what I really thought about the newspaper. So instead I told her the truth. I explained with a smile that I don’t have a home to deliver the paper to.
“Where do you live?" she asked, still holding a dog-eared copy of the Sunday paper.
“I live in a garage,” I answered.
“Oh, we can deliver it there.”
“Look, I don’t have any money for a newspaper subscription.”
“It’s only four dollars a week. Are you looking for a job?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“This is the best place to look for a job! I found this job four days ago right here in the newspaper!”
I tried to hide how little I considered that fact to be a recommendation for taking the paper and answered that I look for jobs online.
“You know, they’re going to stop doing that soon,” she mentioned, “putting articles and ads online. They’re only going to put part of the article online and make you buy the newspaper to read the rest of the article.”
I shook my head and said, “They sure do have a self-destructive streak in them, don’t they?”
“What?” she answered, obviously confused.
“Several years ago I paid forty-five dollars to put a car in the want ads, and a year later when I tried to list one they wanted a hundred and fifty. So I listed it on Craigslist and sold it for free.”
The newspapers are like dinosaurs with their walnut-sized brains, rumbling around, bumping into things. This newspaper in particular was far more conservative than the public it served but called itself the most liberal newspaper in the South because it had a liberal columnist one day per week. The other six days it was full of raving conservatives and Republican opinions.
For instance, a local public hospital was badly in debt and in need of money and it warned it might be forced to close its doors. The state, county and city officials wrung their hands, “Gosh, we just don’t have that much money! Besides, what do we need a public hospital for anyway? Why should the city be in the hospital business?” A white knight rode up in the form of a for-profit hospital corporation and offered to take the hospital off the county's hands on the condition that the state, the city and the county pay off all the hospital's outstanding debts.
The newspaper did a multi-part series on all that was wrong with the public hospital and all that was right about giving it over to the for-profit corporation. Except they forgot to ask the question: if government didn’t have the money to fix the hospital in the first place, where would they get the money to fix it just to give it away? If we could pay off all the debts, why did we need to give it away?
The for-profit corporation promised that all would be as it was. No one would lose their jobs and no services to the public would be curtailed. After the deal was consummated those terms lasted about six weeks before employees were being laid off and departments closed. Did the newspaper bother to mention these breaches of the agreement? No, it wasn’t newsworthy.
They did a story with great fanfare about a the opening of a brand new 150-bed homeless shelter. All the political bigwigs were there at the grand opening, toasting its success with champagne and streamers! The newspaper forgot to mention in the article that the city was closing a 250-bed shelter. The old shelter was being closed because local landlords in the business district felt the shelter was depressing business in the area. The new shelter was in a warehouse district and was located a mile from mass transit and well out of the public’s sight.
So, as I waited for my ride from the grocery store, I watched this long-term newspaper employee trying her best to give away newspapers and not one person took one from her. Several people made comments like, “How much are you going to pay me?” One person even said, “Free? Well you've got it priced right!”
Yesterday I read a story in the Sacramento Bee about Placerville police shooting a hospital patient who had stolen an ambulance.
“Three officers pursued the suspect to the top of a driveway in the 3000 block of Cedar Ravine Road," the statement said.
“There were preliminary indications that the suspect rammed the officers' vehicle," it said.
"There was an officer involved in the shooting at the termination of the pursuit," the chief's statement said. "The suspect is deceased as a result of the shooting."
The patient, a forty-year-old woman, had pulled into a driveway that neighbors said was often confused for an alley. The Placerville police chief said the woman had used the ambulance as a weapon by ramming the police cars (in reverse).
I wondered, being somewhat familiar with ambulance construction, if the police had opened fire riddling the vehicle with bullets and killing the woman. Another source, a local TV station, said the woman was shot as she exited the ambulance. If so, then Houston we have a problem. If the weapon was the ambulance then leaving the ambulance is no different than putting the weapon down.
How could a newspaper leave out such important and relevant facts? It’s easy, they do it all the time. Check out this piece of USA Today Propaganda/News
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-03-29-health-poll_N.htmThe Headlines, “The Oval: Tracking the Obama Presidency”
“Tracking Health Care Debate, keep tabs on Congress”
“Timeline: Road to health care legislation”
"Big Question: Will we really pay more for healthcare?"
The headlines are neutral, leaning to the right; we need to keep tabs on Congress because who is in control? “Will we really pay more for health care” is a right wing talking point. This is a point that was disproved by the Congressional Budget Office, but in the newspaper business you never let facts get in the way of a good story.
“Health Care Law Too Costly, Most Say.
“Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the health care overhaul signed into law last week costs too much and expands the government's role in health care too far, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, underscoring an uphill selling job ahead for President Obama and congressional Democrats.
"Those surveyed are inclined to fear that the massive legislation will increase their costs and hurt the quality of health care their families receive, although they are more positive about its impact on the nation's health care system overall.”
“Most Say?” That "most say" is a sampling of 1,033 adults, so “most say” is an exaggeration at best. “Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the health care overhaul signed into law last week costs too much.” A thousand thirty-three is two-thirds of Americans, really?
"Will expand government’s role in health care too much?"
65% yes
"Will cost the government too much?”
64% yes
"Doesn’t do enough to curb rising costs?"
58% yes
"Should include a public option?"
52% yes
"Doesn’t go far enough in regulating the health care industry?"
51% yes
The last two questions prove the slantedness of the opinions. The first three questions are Republican talking points. The public option was the primary vehicle for cost control. Fifty-two percent? In Democratic polls the public option was favored in the upper 70 to 80 percentile, so 52% means they called suburban Virginia and good, safe Republican districts.
It's like writing a mystery novel; you start with your answer and work backwards. Then you embellish the poll with articles that support the poll, and presto! It looks like the articles support the poll rather than the poll supporting the articles, but it gets better. After a full page of so-called facts and figures, they get to the main course.
“Obama's approval rating was 47%-50% — the first time his disapproval rating has hit 50%.”
“Half call passage of the bill a bad thing and 47% a good thing."
“And when asked about incidents of vandalism and threats that followed the bill's passage, Americans are more inclined to blame Democratic political tactics than critics' harsh rhetoric. Forty-nine percent say Democratic tactics are 'a major reason' for the incidents, while 46% blame criticism by conservative commentators and 43% the criticism of Republican leaders.”
Of course if you haven’t figured out where they’re coming from yet maybe the picture of the woman holding the sign reading "No more waste, pork, bailouts," with the teabags hanging from it might tip you off.
Newspapers are dying not because people don’t want to read newspapers. Newspapers are dying because editors and publishers fail to understand that their monopoly is over. They no longer lead the parade; people won’t pay good money to read half-truths and lies when they can get a diversity of online opinions for free.
"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed." Mark Twain
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