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Ten years ago, our local paper was decent for a "small town" even though Ann Arbor only THINKS it is a small town. It actually runs into 100,000 in population.
The News invested in a modern press plant, so it could get the local NYTimes printing franchise, which was a great boon. But the paper was sold to a company in Grand Rapids, a hotbed of religious whackery, Amway, BlackWater, and the like.
And the paper started to die of starvation. The news went, subject by subject. First the world news disappeared. The US existed in a bubble of denial. Then the national news vanished, unless it featured a dead blonde or a Democrat in trouble. State news dried up, not that the AANews ever admitted that there was a whole state of 8 million, most of whom DIDN'T live in Ann Arbor. The once valiant rag was reduced to a shoppers gazette and obituary column. I think they had to put a gun to the publisher's head when Obama won the primary. His picture never appeared in the paper before that.
When Bush and his buddies trashed the economy, the advertising sales also went to hell. Michigan fell off a cliff at 9/11, and it's been downhill ever since. They called it a one-state recession, but we were just the leading edge of the Greater Depression that the whole nation suffers now.
Advertising was the financial underpinning of the publication, as was true for most newspapers, websites, magazines, etc. The dearth of advertising meant that the business model for the press was no longer viable. (Note that no attempt to boost advertising sales by price competition ever happened...)
With absolutely no reason for this intellectual town to read the fantastical rants of syndicated opinionists like David Brooks and the local Aryan nationalists and GOP bullshitters, customers fell away in droves. There's a reason why the NYTimes is the top seller in this town, but the new AANews owners were hell-bent to "reform" and "educate" the populace into the "right-way" of thinking. Endorsing Bush for BOTH elections was a real loser. People canceled their subscriptions and never returned.
Customer service consisted of negotiations between the carriers (independent contractors, with no rights and all the responsibilities) and the customers. There was one person to answer the phone at Home Delivery and Distribution at any time since Christmas: everyone else was laid off. Customers, defeated or enraged by the voicemail system, grew even more disgusted. All the local reporters and editors and copy editors were filed, and the work done by telecommuters out of Grand Rapids, who would know nothing about the local milieu, and cared less.
So, to break the union (that's the rumor), the paper went out of business, and the owners decided to reconstitute as a website with a printed edition on Thursdays and Sundays. People were supposed to spontaneously tell the website stuff by blogging, and the website would get the profits. The Management had this rosy vision of 80-year-old customers, their most loyal customers, going online. The 80-year-old customers were enraged, those that weren't senile. Actually, the senile are enraged, too. I live next to a retirement community, where my paper route is now, and I get an earful every Thursday and Sunday.
We are in the 3rd week of this Great Experiment, and it is a Total Failure. The new paper is reviled, especially since long-time employees were fired en masse, and no one left standing knows how to do anything, not that the "management" (a bunch of nattily-dressed, sneering people with too little experience and too much arrogance) will permit anyone to follow best practices or listen to any of those "experts" they summarily canned, since it's "too expensive". So the new guys on the block refuse to admit that they have already lost. But anybody who actually does any work knows the jig is up. This paper will cease to exist in 3 months, at best. Maybe sooner.
The management has even tried to rehire people it summarily fired. It's getting turned down. In a state with 15% UNEMPLOYMENT, in a city with 10.5% unemployment, they can't hire talent.
The city is refusing to be taken by these amateurs. The Sunday paper sits in the racks, untouched. The home delivery folks are forced to deliver a "Total Market Coverage" package of ads to anyone who isn't a subscriber. People are livid: those who deliver, and those who receive this crap.
Can you guess which topic was considered important enough for the big story on the front page this Sunday?
Was it the wars, healthcare reform, the destroyed economy (we have a front-row seat for that!), the ecological disasters of climate change, GM foodstuffs, the destruction of forests, or the impending water shortage?
No. The big topic (picked out of the Fundie bag of tricks to scare the herds)
was:
Child Pornography.
Now we haven't had a big scandal locally or nationally involving Child Porn. The press haven't reported on world efforts to combat kiddie porn, either, which some overseas papers have.
No, Child Pornography is the reason why you should vote GOP--to protect your children from it. (Nothing about protecting your adult population, of course). It is one of those scary issues that is getting a tryout off-Broadway, so to speak. Only 1% of the population, by my estimate, has more than a passing titillation interest in the subject. but there it is. That's what you are supposed to spend a dollar on?
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