jaredsinclair.com
I'm a registered nurse. I make apps for nurses.
I live in Nashville. Contact me on gmail at jaredsinclair.rn
-
The Decline of the American Newspaper, and the Dysfunction of the Senate
In the August 9th issue of the New Yorker, George Packer quotes Senator Christopher Dodd on how the deterioration of the nation’s newspapers has contributed to the dysfunction of the Senate:
I used to have eleven Connecticut newspaper reporters who covered me on a daily basis. I don’t have one today, and haven’t had one in a number of years. Instead, D.C. publications only see me through the prism of conflict.
City newspapers cannot afford to staff Washington bureaus anymore because of catastrophic losses of revenue over the past decade. A combination of factors led to this state of affairs.
Newspapers tried to widen profit margins in the late 1990s by buying out the contracts of their veteran (i.e. more costly) reporters, which saved money at the expense of quality journalism.
This was during the dotcom boom, when newspapers began posting their full content online for free. Executives failed to grasp the dynamics of this new medium until it was too late. Almost every major paper has been hemorrhaging money over the past decade as more and more subscribers opt out of renewal because they can access the same content online for free.
For a stirring explanation of this trend, watch Bill Moyers’ interview with David Simon (former reporter and creator of “The Wire.”)
