Who pays the salaries of the Press?

Do you think your piddly 50-cents is covering the cost of the crappy
newsprint your paper is printed on, much less the costs of the equipment
and labor required to paginate, platemake, press, package, distribute
and deliver a newspaper?

I believe it costs the newspapers something like $3 per newspaper to do
that. And the carrier takes half of the 50-cents that you pay for it...

Advertising pays the bills, and the newspaper's first allegiance is to
the advertiser. It's been that way pretty much from the very beginning.
Journalistic Integrity is only a priority if it doesn't conflict with
revenue generation.

How much do you pay to watch a News Report on a network TV channel? How
much of your $50 cable bill do you think goes to CNN? The priorities in
TV media are no different.

The CUSTOMER in the media is the ADVERTISER, not the reader. The reader
is just a means to support the customer.

For a long time, the media talked about journalistic integrity because
they thought it was necessary to be taken seriously and increase
circulation (which subsequently allows them to charge more to
advertisers), especially as compared to the tabloids. Most papers were
family owned and operated, and the publishers looked at the tabs as junk
and embarrasing, and it inflated their egos to know their paper was
"above that."

However, over the years, and especially since the success of CNN during
the Gulf War in 1990, it has become apparent to the newspapers that
sensationalism works, and the junk tabs have circulations higher than
theirs... That, in combination with the growing number of corporate
buyouts from companies like Gannett, Tribune, NYT Co, Knight Ridder,
Newhouse, CNHI, and others have nearly eliminated family-owned
newspapers that were driven by the ego of a person who has "run this
paper with integrity for generations" in favor of papers that are driven
by corporate agendas and wall-street reporting requirements.

And so, as newspaper publishers recognize that junk is more profitable
than integrity, and get pressure from their corporate executives to show
better numbers, they forget about enforcing integrity and accuracy, and
focus on generating revenue, selling advertising, and cutting costs.
Some papers today barely have stories in them anymore - they've become
advertising rags. As the quality of the product goes down, and the
readers become more cynical, the circulation continues dropping (WSJ
reported a 1.9% decline in circulation this year), and the whole thing
backfires.

Over time, there will be a backlash, and at some point newspapers will
get back to basics - reporting local stories with integrity to provide a
product that their readers cannot get anywhere else - not on Major Metro
TV networks or mass-market Internet Web sites. And perhaps the
circulation will tick up again. But make no mistake - the newspapers are
feeling the crunch, and don't seem to understand that journalistic
integrity, which is now low on thier list, is a significant player in
their recovery.

It will be interesting transition to watch.

"Gig 601XL Builder" wr.giacona@coxDOTnet wrote in
news:Vfube.24313$up2.19288@okepread01:


wrote in message
...
On Tue, 26 Apr 2005 04:35:27 GMT, "H.P." wrote:

They're stupid AND lazy. I was in P.R. for about 10 years and
reporters just
ate out of my hand. I basically did the work for them on the facts
and my clients paid for it. My biggest successes were stories that I
wrote but were
printed whole cloth by the paper. I once was duped by a client. I
sent out
press releases, press kits and got the nets, locals, cable and radio
to cover an event based upon a wrong premise. I got ink, video and
radio for my
client like there was no tomorrow. Not one of them fact-checked.


Let's see if I understand this...

YOU were duped, and the newspaper reporters were the ones at fault
for not fact-checking?

No he was given false info by his client who paid him to get it out in
the press. He had no responsibility to prove everything that he gave
the press was true. If PR people had to do that they would all be out
of business in a week. Their job is to spin information to put their
client in the best light.

On the other hand the press has a responsibility to check facts.
ESPECIALLY when it comes from a PR firm.