The fact that the Inquirer has always been a shit paper doesn't really matter here, it's more the continuing principle that the press is more interested in being the news than breaking it, Frank Rich's tears from this weekend's NYTimes notwithstanding (and thanks to loyal reader Esteban for sending me this one):
The American Press on Suicide Watch
That’s why the debate among journalists about possible forms of payment (subscriptions, NPR-style donations, iTunes-style micropayments, foundation grants) is inside baseball. So is the acrimonious sniping between old media and new. The real question is for the public, not journalists: Does it want to pony up for news, whatever the media that prevail?
It’s all a matter of priorities. Not long ago, we laughed at the idea of pay TV. Free television was considered an inalienable American right (as long as it was paid for by advertisers). Then cable and satellite became the national standard.
By all means let’s mock the old mainstream media as they preen and party on in a Washington ballroom. Let’s deplore the tabloid journalism that, like the cockroach, will always be with us. But if a comprehensive array of real news is to be part of the picture as well, the time will soon arrive for us to put up or shut up. Whatever shape journalism ultimately takes in America, make no mistake that in the end we will get what we pay for.
Funny enough, I actually agree with Rich. It would be more meaningful, however, if he wasn't talking from atop the pinnacle of the "media-as-news" movement, namely the NYT Op-Ed page. And probably at a salary that could keep 5 real journalists employed.
But right now, that's what the MSM is: commentary of ideology in the hopes of landing a 5 minute spot on Olbermann or O'Reilly, as necessity dictates. God save the 4th estate from itself.
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