The St. Louis Post-Dispatch vividly illustrates
the media’s downfall
American Thinker,
by
Helen Louise Herndon
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
4/6/2022 7:58:12 AM
My parents were avid readers of the daily newspaper. I can’t remember a day when they didn’t read in full their newspaper of choice, the Pulitzer St. Louis Post-Dispatch. As members of the working class, they chose the Democrat-leaning St. Louis Post-Dispatch over the more Republican-leaning St. Louis Globe-Democrat. In those days, it was a recognized national newspaper. Today, one could say it is basically a local newspaper and, sadly, no longer a good one.For 60 years, whenever I’ve lived in St. Louis, I’ve been an ardent reader and subscriber, breaking away only during my college years in South Carolina and the eight years I spent in France and Tunisia
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Newtsche 4/6/2022 8:35:15 AM (No. 1120783)
Long before the Post-Disgrace soiled its product with its Michael Brown/Ferguson coverage, the paper was a conspicuous rag. It still lives in the past, touting the Pulitzer name, as if that were some sort of proof of gilded status. The good old days carry a lot of weight around here to an embarrassing extent.
4 people like this.
This sort of leftist dumbing down is happening in other formerly good newspapers.
I grew up reading the Louisville Courier Journal and I would look forward to reading it, and then doing the crossword every day. You could actually find out what was going on locally and around the world.
Then, several decades ago the paper was sold to Gannet during a family inheritance squabble and went rapidly left and down hill. At this point it has roughly eight or ten total pages of far left propaganda and news of the democrat party and their grievance groups. It is not fit to line your bird cage. Sad.
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Reply 3 - Posted by:
john56 4/6/2022 10:05:02 AM (No. 1120866)
I grew up reading newspapers. I'd read every newspaper I could get my hands on.
When I moved to Texas, I got both local papers. Got the Wall Street Journal too. When I'd travel, there was the USA Today. Sunday morning, it would be at least a two-hour job to read the newspapers. Heck, it would take 30 minutes to separate all the ad inserts and sections I didn't read (real estate ads, etc.) from the rest of the paper. When I moved to a smaller community, I got their local paper (5 times a week).
Well, now, the local paper is twice a week -- Wednesday and Sunday. I only get the San Antonio paper on Sunday. And hey, they print it in Houston, so basically, anything that happens after about 10 am on Saturday doesn't find its way into print. Basically, it's a Saturday paper delivered a day late.
I can read both papers in under 30 minutes. The editorial section, which used to be its own section but now three pages at the back of the news section is usually "Republicans (especially Trump and Ted Cruz) are bad, if not evil" written by the editorialists, three or four columnists, and a few handpicked letters to the editor. Even the sports section has no news -- nothing about recent contests (unless they were from "late Friday night.").
Ho hum.
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Reply 4 - Posted by:
MDConservative 4/6/2022 10:41:03 AM (No. 1120897)
This is a common story. With few exceptions, newspapers have become irrelevant in daily life. They cannot compete with the visuals and "excitement" conveyed by television. Many have discarded without replacement their featured columnists. The "news" content is ripped from the press service wires. And the price of print, including delivery costs, has gone far beyond the value of the content. I used to home deliver papers for 70 cents a week, including Sunday. Now, unless taking advantage of a circulation giveaway deal, the price is getting nearer $10 "retail". For bird cage liner.
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Papers held sway in so many aspects of life for so long they are old dogs unable to learn new tricks.
The beginning of the end for them was, ironically, the humble classified ad. Prices for words, letters, spaces were astronomical because it was a nexus for buyers & sellers - some classifieds were more expensive than display ads.
Craigslist laid waste almost overnight to the lucrative classified revenue. Listings were FREE, sales were FREE ie no commission or tax and there was no limit to characters, length of listing, number of listings, etc. It was a beautiful thing.
Newspapers had a strange reaction to the Internet - they began giving their content away for free because they simply wanted to belong. Paywalls today are useless because content is rubbish - a subscription model in the early days might have extended newspapers' lives.
Instead, they became insular, desperate, cynical, grasping. Newsrooms were cut to the bone. But, worst of all, consolidation and corporate ownership meant that moneyed coastal interests parachuted in hard-left editors, many of them militant race baiters and militant gays. Coverage of both topics became wildly disproportionate to audience interest and, as the author notes, almost became an exercise in spite.
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Reply 6 - Posted by:
SycamoreHills 4/6/2022 2:08:51 PM (No. 1121156)
As a native St. Louisan and a former subscriber I have to say the author is preaching to the choir. In the late sixties Playboy had an article that interviewed Russian journalists touring America and one of their most pressing questions was how the government kept such tight control over the newspapers. To the Russians all the papers seemed the same with the exceptions of the Louisville Courier-Journal and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. How times have changed. Since I no longer raise canaries I have absolutely no use for the Post-Dispatch.
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Reply 7 - Posted by:
raspberry 4/6/2022 3:50:38 PM (No. 1121251)
I graduated from journalism school in 1966 and soon landed a government job where I read four newspapers every day. Papers seemed even then mostly to follow the traditional standards of objectivity, truth, and unbiased reporting. I watched them all change from newspapers to Democrat propaganda organs. How sad.
I have not read a "news" paper since I retired in 2004.
4 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
mifla 4/7/2022 5:07:18 AM (No. 1121724)
I stopped having the newspaper delivered years ago. That being said, I do miss going out to Sunday breakfast after church and reading the Sunday edition, especially the comics.
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