Too bad newspapers are failing. It’s their own fault. Sears was the largest retailer in America
from the end of WWII until the 1980s.
Sears is now bankrupt. You can
almost hear the board members of the retail giant chortling, “This interweb
thing will never take off. We’re just
too big to fail,” but fail they have. Newspaper
are taking the same route.
It’s comical to read the JG’s sub-headline, “Agenda-driven sites masquerading as journalism ill serve
news-starved communities.” Look at the
log in your own eye – it’s the mainstream media’s own agenda-driven reporting
that is masquerading as journalism. The
only professions with lower approval ratings than “journalists” are pimps,
prostitutes and pornographers.
Does the JG seriously believe that they are fooling
anyone except the same writers who habitually litter this paper’s letters and
editorial page that what happens at the JG is “journalism”? It is agenda-driven
tripe through and through, nothing more.
The JG buys the ink and newsprint. It can print whatever it chooses, but to pretend
that what they choose to print isn’t “agenda-driven” nonsense is just plain lying
to yourselves and your readers.
“Newspapers, of
course, offer political opinions, but they are labeled as such and usually
presented on the editorial and oped pages.”
Newspapers are also a business. What
business model encourages businesses to not only ignore half the potential customers
but openly lampoon them, call them names like racists, white supremacists, deplorables,
irredeemables, criminals etc. for nothing more than who they chose to support
in the 2016 election?
Ad revenue is driven
by circulation. When newspapers decide
that it is worth printing nothing but left leaning rubbish and lies day in and
day out they alienate a large percentage of potential customers. When they drive those customers off, ad
revenues drop and the newspaper possibly folds or shrinks causing the dreaded “news-desert”.
That’s right JG,
newspapers’ single-minded “agenda-driven” trash masquerading as journalism is a
self-inflicted wound, sometimes fatal, that ill serves news-starved
communities. In
simple terms JG - you are the problem – you are your own worst enemy.
Look at your Sunday letters. Actually it could be any day that it is
one-sided smorgasbord of leftist hate and foolish arguments.
“Senators
must restore our order, tranquility” by Nick Wilhelm referring to the Kurds as
allies left to suffer annihilation at the hands of the Turks is just stupid. Whatever a person might think of America’s
precipitous withdrawal of 28 American’s from Syria, the Kurds are NOT
allies. There is no treaty between the
US and disparate factions, some communist supporting, Kurds. The US has a treaty
with only one side in that fight and happens to be with NATO ally Turkey. The
Kurds would be more accurately described as mercenaries. We armed them, and we paid them to fight an enemy
that it was in their own best interest to fight.
“US embarrassment
can't end too quickly” by Jack Rhoades is another example of leftist knee-jerk
foolishness. He misquotes scripture to indicate
why he’s so scared he cannot come out from under the bedsheets. Rhoades writes, “It seems like money really is the root of all evil because that
is the only excuse you could possibly give for people putting any kind of
backing behind him.” First 1 Timothy
6:10 states that it is “the love of money that is the root of all kinds of
evil.” Next it is rich that Rhoades misquotes
that passage and applies it Trump supporters when Democrats are the party of
Soros, Gates, Bezos, Steyer, Bloomberg, all of Silicon Valley, all of Hollywood
and the rest of super rich big dollar donors.
It’s also ridiculous that Rhoades ignores Joe Biden and his next to
worthless addict son’s get rich quick off of Joe’s position as VP and the Clinton
Foundation’s get richer quicker scheme of selling influence when she was “a
sure thing” to be the next president of the United States. 99.9% of that money dried up on Nov 9th
2016 when she got her ample backside handed to her by PDJT. He also ignores the fact that PDJT is working
for free and while Joe and Hunter were exploiting every opportunity to market
Joe’s government position, PDJT’s family has eschewed foreign investments the
day he was elected. That is why PDJT is
known as the “blue collar billionaire” and the Bidens and Clintons are being
exposed as cheap crooks.
What would a day on the letters page without a
poorly reasoned broad-brush assault on all Trump supporters and their motives? David Soward’s hit piece, “Blind support
should bring harm to GOP,” fits the bill.
Soward’s letter, dripping with anger, claims “people who support
criminals are criminals, too, right down to the voters” must include the Biden’s
and Clinton’s criminal activities. Does Soward want to take on Fast and
Furious, IRS, EPA and Bergdahl scandals, spying on American citizens and an
opposition party’s presidential candidate and allowing Russian interference in
the 2016 election all of which took place under President Obama? Full filling campaign
promises is not a crime. Voting your own
economic and social interests is not a crime.
Then throw in the JG’s support for assaulting Americans’
constitutional rights when it come to the first, second and fourth amendments
found nearly daily on the JG’s letters and editorial page and ask why would any
right leaning person pay to read such utter garbage?
To the extent that “news deserts”
exist, the MSM need look no further than the bathroom mirror to understand why.
To the extent that people get their news from the JG, Ft. Wayne is already a “news
desert.” It will be a great day for Ft.
Wayne when the JG is sold, folds or is reduced to a tabloid format printed
three days a week. When that great day
comes, it will be by the JG’s own editors’ and owners’ hands.
We need a parody of this song for Bagdaddy - I'm blown to pieces
We need a parody of this song for Bagdaddy - I'm blown to pieces
Thursday,
October 24, 2019 1:00 am
EDITORIAL
Web of deceit
Agenda-driven
sites masquerading as journalism ill serve news-starved communities
Journalism researchers call them “news deserts” – communities
whose principal daily newspaper has either closed, merged with papers in other
communities or reduced publication to a few days a week. The presumption has
been that citizens who depended on local reporting to keep them informed and
perform a watchdog role on local government will be shortchanged.
Last year, a paper by Paul Gao, associate professor of finance
at the University of Notre Dame, and two University of Illinois at Chicago
researchers revealed that communities that lose their newspaper literally pay a
price in higher government costs as officials conduct business without being
subject to the scrutiny of local newspaper reporters.
“Our results indicate that local newspapers hold their
government accountable, keeping municipal borrowing costs low and ultimately
saving taxpayer money,” the team wrote. “The research also found that the loss
of government monitoring from newspaper closures is associated with higher
government wages and deficits.”
Other studies have shown correlations with lower voter turnout,
fewer people running for office and greater political polarization.
Just how news-desert communities are going to fill the
information void is a subject of constant debate within the journalism
community. But one notably bad solution is already taking root. In some communities,
political and ideological groups are producing news on websites and in print
and foisting their products off as “newspapers.”
In Michigan, where Detroit and several other large communities
no longer have a daily newspaper, dozens of websites have emerged offering some
local news but also peddling a hidden political agenda.
Newspapers, of course, offer political opinions, but they are
labeled as such and usually presented on the editorial and oped pages. And
websites with a political slant certainly aren't new.
“But presenting them as non-biased local news sources is,” Matt
Grossman, director of Michigan State University's Institute for Public Policy
and Social Research, recently told the Lansing State Journal's Carol Thompson.
“The big issue is this extent to which they have gone to try to confuse about
this being the site of a local newspaper,” Grossman said.
The sites, which resemble newspaper websites, carry local and
state stories – only some of which have a conservative bent – and bear such names
as the Lansing Sun, the Ann Arbor Times and the Thumb Reporter, Thompson
reported.
Democrats have been trying to get in on the action in some areas
as well.Vice.com (itself an undisguised progressive-leaning news website)
reports: “Four 'news' outlets staffed by Democratic operatives will publish
state-specific information across social media in Michigan, Pennsylvania,
Florida, and Wisconsin.” Republicans are also starting swing-state websites
designed to look like newspaper sites, Politico.com reported.
Fake newspaper sites have even been mobilized to covertly push a
candidate in a political primary. Last year, Arizona Senate candidate Kelli
Ward proudly posted links to an “endorsement” by “the Arizona Monitor.” The
“Monitor's” endorsement included attacks on Ward's opponents in the Republican
primary and concluded, “Kelli Ward is your woman.”
But, Politico reported, “despite its reputable sounding name,
the Arizona Monitor is not a real news site. It is an anonymous, pro-Ward blog
... the site launched just a few weeks before publishing the endorsement, and
its domain registration is hidden, masking the identity of its owner.”
As the journalism website Poynter.org observed, news deserts
“not only produce nothing nutritious for people, they also attract snakes,
scorpions, vultures and cactuses armed with prickles.” Michigan is just a click
or two away from Indiana; let digital readers beware.
Senators must restore our order, tranquility
I recently appealed to our two U.S. senators on recent
presidential threats to our orderly political system.
In the preamble to our Constitution are the words “
insure domestic tranquility.” Today I wonder what tranquility remains with the
actions of the presidency unleashed on this union.
Recently, our president proclaimed we are pulling out of Syria
and leaving the Kurd allies to suffer annihilation by Turkish forces. There
seems to have been no discussion with Congress, our military leadership or
intelligence agencies. Then President Donald Trump proclaims: “Anyone who wants
to assist Syria in protecting the Kurds is OK with me, whether it's
Russia, China or Napoleon.”
This flippant language lacks any sense of
leadership. Vladimir Putin is inserting
himself as moderator of a region that brought 9/11 to our shores and
includes Iran, which is in lock step with the Russian leader.
Trump is not interested in our tranquility, and most certainly
neither is Putin.
It bothers me that both our senators remain silent
when they see a leader who clearly threatens the integrity of our relationships
to world and national order. Tranquility and order are tied together.
How do they sit without being provoked to action when both made
oaths to uphold our Constitution?
This president mocks constitutional limits. There have been
direct references to his abusing our whole system of ordered elections. This is
a rogue trampling through a nation's identity.
Get up, not according to your political stripes, but to truly
support the stripes of one nation needing a sense of order and tranquility.
Nick Wilhelm
Fort Wayne
US embarrassment can't end too quickly
I would like to agree 1,000% with Sharon Heckaman's letter
(“Actions of president leave unsafe feeling,” Oct. 16). She hit the nail
squarely on the head.
Every word she wrote is painfully true and will certainly come
back to bite us all if we elect Donald Trump again. I can't even fathom
another four years of his childish ways which are so divisive to our
country. It seems like money really is the root of all evil because that is
the only excuse you could possibly give for people putting any kind of
backing behind him.
Folks like me are really going to have trouble if we reelect
him. It's sad that people are so greedy we have to put up with a reality
TV show host as our leader. There are so many better choices out there. This is
embarrassing to our country.
Jack Rhoades
Fort Wayne
Blind support should bring harm to GOP
Would you vote for someone who was racist or who was corrupt or
who lied 10,000 times or who broke the law openly or who undermines trust in
the government or who was involved in numerous scandals? No? Then don't vote
for those who support someone like that.
We can take a stand against the president and what his party has
become by voting against every Republican running for office this
year and next year.
I call on all Republican candidates and voters to renounce their
party. The president doesn't represent you or your values, so why support him?
Local Republican candidates would like to distance themselves
from Donald Trump, but they are linked to him whether they like it or not. They
have supported him. They have raised money for him. They have voted for him.
They have sent their own money to him. And now, they are tainted by
him. So, how can you vote for anyone who follows the president so blindly?
Before you vote for any Republican, ask yourself, do you really
want to be known for making that decision? Consider years from now, how could
you possibly defend supporting Trump and his followers? Your children,
grandchildren, and other relatives and friends may even ask you in the future
how you possibly could have made a mistake like voting for the
Republicans.
People who support criminals are criminals, too, right down to
the voters. Take a stand. Support and vote for the Democrats while you still
can.
David Sowards
Fort Wayne
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