What's your honest opinion of BBC news and CNN?
SW-User
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I appreciate the international BBC news that comes via our local (US) PBS station. I don't think I ever watch CNN, nor much the alphabet soup news from the US. It all seems to be pushing agendas. What they call "Breaking News" isn't very "breaking", really. It looks more like the news organizations are just throwing political jell-o against the wall to see if it will stick.
Newspapers are as bad. Our big city newspaper, which was once an empire with two daily deliveries, has shrunk so much that our weekly church bulletin is sometimes larger. Occasionally they have a problem with deliveries and it's not until they skip 3 or 4 days before a neighbor asks: "did you get the newspaper yesterday and today?"
You'd think a metro area of 2+ million would generate plenty of news every day to still feed two dailies. Throw in another million+ for all the big towns within a 50 mile radius?
Newspapers are as bad. Our big city newspaper, which was once an empire with two daily deliveries, has shrunk so much that our weekly church bulletin is sometimes larger. Occasionally they have a problem with deliveries and it's not until they skip 3 or 4 days before a neighbor asks: "did you get the newspaper yesterday and today?"
You'd think a metro area of 2+ million would generate plenty of news every day to still feed two dailies. Throw in another million+ for all the big towns within a 50 mile radius?
SW-User
@Heartlander well said sir
Heartlander · 80-89, M
@HerKing Yes, I understand. But to go to the Newspaper websites they are mostly links to the alphabet-soup "breaking news" stories. What's missing is the attachment to the local people and what's important to them. The newspapers feed their agendas rather than their communities needs for inner-connecting.
What was once a 10+ page classified section of our local newspaper should have morphed into an even larger, lower priced and more fluid version on the newspaper's internet site. Likewise for sports, neighborhoods sections, etc.
Declining industries don't usually fix themselves. Like passenger rail service, or bus service, they just slowly evaporate.
What was once a 10+ page classified section of our local newspaper should have morphed into an even larger, lower priced and more fluid version on the newspaper's internet site. Likewise for sports, neighborhoods sections, etc.
Declining industries don't usually fix themselves. Like passenger rail service, or bus service, they just slowly evaporate.
HerKing · 61-69, M
@Heartlander I briefly worked in the mailroom of a newspaper as a supervisor. You may know already but the mailroom is the area that has the snakes of newspapers running from the press to the stackers (and other machines) that count and stack the copies that will be loaded onto vans to go to the stores etc.
90% of nearly every paper (and there were about 50-60 different titles over the week going to various places all over the country) was advertising. The 'news' was minimal, and usually made to look more by spreading it between the pages and pages of ads for car dealers, more car dealers, property sales, various things of worth...and then of course the 'informercials' The article dressed up as a piece of reporting on the next great thing but is really an ad.
As I said, it's all because of money or the thinly spread availability of it. No money, no paying reporters, no reporters, no-one to cover what is important to you.
I've also been a freelance photographer for a newspaper and on that gig I two or three times did the 'reporting' as well as take photos. And no doubt I made mistakes in spelling people's names incorrectly or getting a detail wrong; Not malicious or nefarious, just the pressure of time.
90% of nearly every paper (and there were about 50-60 different titles over the week going to various places all over the country) was advertising. The 'news' was minimal, and usually made to look more by spreading it between the pages and pages of ads for car dealers, more car dealers, property sales, various things of worth...and then of course the 'informercials' The article dressed up as a piece of reporting on the next great thing but is really an ad.
As I said, it's all because of money or the thinly spread availability of it. No money, no paying reporters, no reporters, no-one to cover what is important to you.
I've also been a freelance photographer for a newspaper and on that gig I two or three times did the 'reporting' as well as take photos. And no doubt I made mistakes in spelling people's names incorrectly or getting a detail wrong; Not malicious or nefarious, just the pressure of time.
Heartlander · 80-89, M
@HerKing Sounds like exciting episodes of your life.
In one my previous lives I worked for a data processing service that did the invoicing for a news syndicate so I got to see how much newspapers paid for some of the bits and pieces that went to make up their newspapers.
I understand a little about the money on the other end. Like what newspapers charge for advertising and how it impacts the future of the publication.
A great benefit of the internet is the ability to correct errors. Much more difficult after printing 200,000 newspapers :)
In one my previous lives I worked for a data processing service that did the invoicing for a news syndicate so I got to see how much newspapers paid for some of the bits and pieces that went to make up their newspapers.
I understand a little about the money on the other end. Like what newspapers charge for advertising and how it impacts the future of the publication.
A great benefit of the internet is the ability to correct errors. Much more difficult after printing 200,000 newspapers :)