Rick Raw: Newspapers Drowning in Red Ink–The Death of Print Journalism

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

It’s no secret that newspapers across the country are drowning in red ink. More significantly, print journalism as a means of getting information is slowly dying. The skyrocketing interest in the Internet is gradually replacing the entire print medium. Information travels at the speed of light across the vast broadband matrix of the World Wide Web creating instant news and, information, and the availability of research on any subject.

According to Michael de la Merced of The New York Times, "The Tribune Co. publisher of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and the Baltimore Sun filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Owned by billionaire Sam Zell, the company’s holdings include 23 TV stations, and a dozen newspapers is $13 billion in debt. The venerable New York Times had to borrow $225 million to keep operating for the next few months. Readership is down from 80% in 1970 to 48% in 2008. Zell called his financial problems a ‘perfect storm’ of plunging advertising and declining circulation, coupled with a worldwide credit shortage."

Ultimately, the instrument of death is the plunge in advertising revenues. Likewise, selling advertising on the Internet has not replaced the profits of print advertising. Until a method of ratings is established (like radio) that takes into account more than just clicks, it’s hard to convince prospective advertisers that they are getting their money’s worth of coverage. The idea of selling subscriptions to newspaper websites to access more material and archives has not worked out. It’s a free and free-flowing information super-highway.

In contrast, compared to the Internet, the enormous expense of buying big rolls of paper, printing it as newspapers, and delivering the product to market has risen tenfold. Indeed, the handwriting is on the wall. The viable newspaper business model is rapidly fading into history. The entire newspaper industry is terminally ill.

This new age of Internet dominance, print media’s waning business model, and the recent economic collapse sent an arrow through my financial heart. I was suddenly laid-off from my magazine job. Of course, compared to being a salaried journalist writing for a legitimate printed publication, my present status is like so many out of work journalists--we’re cast into the ocean of Internet anonymity.

Andrew Sullivan in the London Times said, "Newspapers are done for. Print and paper plus delivery by truck are immensely cumbersome and expensive compared with a modem. Some papers like The New York Times and The Washington Post have responded to this new reality with great websites that offer loads of information and entertainment . But online advertising, while growing, simply is not as lucratiove as print ads, nor is it growing fast enough."

Undoubtedly, the recession has advanced the inevitable demise of print media. Consolidation has been a possible savior. But the overhead expensives still eat up profits. The Internet age swept into all media like a plague of locusts. No one could react fast enough. Now, every hack and nut job is a blogger babbler, clogging up the broadband channels with unsubstantiated opinion. Every real journalist has to be fast on the draw to come up with scoops. Internet rumors are rampant with bogus information flying around like debris caught up in a dust devil.

The age of the publishing empires is over. Billionaire publishers are disappearing. They are scaling down their multiple holdings and bleeding red ink. Visionary thinkers are figuring out how to make money on the Internet. But it will never be comparable to the age of print media.

Websites like the Huffington Post are models of future Internet news with investigative journalists on the payroll. Quality writers will always rise to the top among the millions of hack bloggers. It’s a bold new world of fast moving information that renders newspapers old news as soon as they’re printed.
(All quotes from The Week.)

Rick Raw: Drinking from The Cup– Doug Saint Carter’s Book–A Strange and Frustrating Journey

By Rick Grant rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

When Doug Saint Carter wrote a biography of the late-great Jackie Wilson titled "Jackie Wilson: The Black Elvis," he never dreamed that he had stirred up a hornets nest among blacks who completely misunderstood the title and the book’s biography of one of the greats of pop music. For Doug, it was an unexpected reaction to his exhaustive non-fiction work.

During his book signings and promotional speeches, he had to explain that Jackie Wilson billed himself as "The Black Elvis" and was good friends with Elvis, who jokingly billed himself as the white Jackie Wilson. The two artists freely stole stage moves from one another. Race never interfered with their relationship.

Doug’s experience with African-American audiences and their negative criticism of his book prompted Doug to get involved with civic groups in Jacksonville, Florida. The groups were promoting better race relations between whites and blacks. He quickly found out that he was the only person in the room at these events who was willing to talk about race relations and, in fact, the blacks kept quiet on the subject, and offered no suggestions.

His experiences led to this book, the title of which alludes to a Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech in which he states, "Learn to love your white brothers and sisters; don’t drink from the cup of bitterness and hate."

This well written and meticulously researched book takes the reader on Doug’s real life journey through the treacherous mind fields of forging better race relations. His candid documentary style uncovers the conundrum of African-American alienation from whites. "Do blacks even want to have better relations with whites,?" Doug asks rhetorically.

The book was written and printed before Barack Obama was elected President. Indeed, Obama’s election as President of the United States set a new paradigm for race relations. His historic rise to leader of the free world raised the consciousness of everyone.

This must read book leads us into this new dawn of racial harmony. Finally blacks can put the past behind them. Doug’s book sets the stage for this new era when blacks and whites stood side by side to get Obama elected. His election opened the great-divide

Doug’s journey into the mouth of the dragon should wake up the black community to Obama’s blast of positive energy. Ultimately, Doug is saying: "It’s time to come together and put the past behind us and move on into the new world of positive race relations, while celebrating our differences.

Rick Raw: Walmart Stampede–Consumerism Run Amok (Dec. 11)

By Rick Grant Commentary http://www.rickatnight.com/ rickgrant01@comcast.net

The Black Friday Walmart stampede which resulted in the death of a store employee underscores how consumerism as turned to irrational hysteria. A throng of crazed shoppers physically broke down the doors, pushing their way into the Walmart at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream. The 34 year old greeter was trying to protect a pregnant woman and was knocked to the floor and trampled to death.

A man had to die so someone could get 40% off on a flat screen TV. It’s a sad commentary on how Christmas has become over-commercialized, brain washing people to believe that if they don’t go out and buy gifts for relatives, their whole world will crumble. It’s holiday madness that has turned Christmas into a stressed out nightmare for what once was a happy time of being with one’s family.

This year, the desperate retailers’ advertising gimmicks offered enticing deals that drove people to behave in a panic mode to buy presents on a budget. The ongoing recession has caused people to search for extraordinary bargains so they could have at least a modest Christmas. Driven by tunnel vision, the glassy eyed shoppers at the Walmart had camped out over night to be first in line to grab the bargains when the store opened at 4:00 am. Juiced with adrenalin, ordinary people succumbed to a mob hysteria.

Long ago, I renounced the commercialization of Christmas and wished I could travel to La Paz, Bolivia until the crazy season was over. The 1940s era that inspired A Christmas Story was a simpler time just after WWII. I have fond memories of Christmastime when I was a kid. Gift giving was much more restrained. Receiving my first bicycle was a big deal or a Red Ryder BB gun or new pajamas. These were token gifts to make Christmas day exciting. I didn’t expect big ticket items. Money was tight.

Today, middle class people spend an average of a thousand dollars on Christmas whether they can afford it or not. That was unthinkable in my childhood. My parents went through the depression and World War II. Just being together and able to buy an abundance of food after the strict rationing of WWII was enough.

In our minds, we need to get back to that time and tone down the bad craziness of feeling like we have something to prove to our relatives and family. Since we’re all feeling the pain of this economic downturn, just tell the family and the creepy relatives not to expect gifts. My solution was to drop out of the gift giving game all together. Hey, call me Scrooge, but I sleep just fine and there are no ghosts showing up to freak me out.

Kids need to understand how the recession effects everyone financially. Today’s kids are already spoiled. Let them know the financial facts of life. If they want a Wii or an XBox then they should get a job and work for it. When I wanted a car, I was expected to work in the family business to cover the cost. Believe me, I paid for that car in spades working under the tyranny of my dad. It was tantamount to indentured servitude.

From yesteryear’s family gathering with simple gifts to today’s unrestrained spending spree at Christmastime, the whole idea of the holiday season has been corrupted by massive advertising hype. It’s so pervasive the subliminal message plants the seeds of rampant shopaholic mania. In the masses’ collective mindset, a switch is flipped on, sending them to the malls like junkies in search of a fix. Wake up and smell the conspiracy to get your money. Drop out of the fiendish Christmas pressure to buy gifts. Afer all, Christmas is just another day.

Rick Raw: Gay Marriage Ban Fallout Dec. 4th

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

The passage of the gay marriage ban initiative in Florida and California not only set back the gay rights movement, but it exposed an ironic conundrum among blacks. Of course, giving gays the same rights as heterosexuals makes sense to most liberal minded people, me included.

However, when this issue went before the voters, those of us who support gays rights to marry knew that this initiative would bring out the vicious right wing religious zealots, waving their Bibles and echoing the words of their hypocritical preachers.

Ah yes, but what we didn’t foresee was the exit polls showed that about 70 percent of blacks voted in favor to Proposition 8 in California and Florida. Both states are now free to amend their constitutions to ban same-sex marriage. More significantly, what happens to the gays who had already married before the ban went into effect? No one knows.

Ironically, gay right activists compare their struggle for equal rights to the long and bloody Civil Rights Movement. For some strange reason, blacks think that the gay rights movement is completely different from racial equality. Comprehensive polling suggests that only a small percentage of African-Americans think that homosexuality is genetic or inborn.

In contrast, among free thinking whites, tolerance and support for gay rights has been rising exponentially. In other words, whites think that if homosexuality is genetic, then gays should have the same rights as heterosexuals because living a gay lifestyle is not a sexual preference but a natural sexual drive. The scientific evidence is overwhelming.

So, what is at the bottom of this black voter conundrum? Obviously, there’s a disconnect between the gay rights movement and the African-American zeitgeist. A cultural divide exists in the black community that is also influenced by their fiery hell and brimstone preachers. Likewise, there are a significant number of black gays who get no support from their own community. Yes, this is a touchy issue among blacks, but one that needs to be brought to the surface.

Clearly, gay rights activists have not enlightened the black community of the worthiness of their cause. So, when black voters went into the voting booth, they thought, "Geez, gays getting married is disgusting." Somehow, gay activists need to parlay with black leaders to work out their differences and point out the similarities between the gay rights struggle and the Civil Rights Movement.

In my view, there is no earthly reason why gays should not get married and enjoy the same rights as heterosexual couples. Why not? It has no effect on my life or the lives of black heterosexuals. Somehow, religion and prejudice has corrupted reason among those who oppose gay marriage–black or white.

Everyone in show business knew that Emmy winning black comic actress Wanda Sykes was gay, but she didn’t talk about it or go to gay rights functions. To her, it was a private matter. But when the gay marriage ban was ratified in California and Florida, she spoke out at a gay rights rally for the first time criticizing her fellow African-Americans for being so intolerant."Now, I’m getting in their faces," she said. Black gay celebrities coming out publically will definitely help the cause.

How this injustice will play out during the Obama administration will be interesting. Gay rights activists have suffered a major setback. Now repealing these new constitutional amendments will be an uphill struggle. However, it’s just a matter of time before people of all races will see that homosexuality is nothing to fear or is no threat to heterosexual lifestyles. Time heals all wounds.