Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

I mentioned a report in the last post called "The State of the News Media 2006." Georgie Ann Geyer uses it as an argument to say that we no longer know what's going on in the world because we don't read newspapers any longer.

The report says that in 1980, there were 1,745 daily newspapers in the U.S.; by 2002 in had dropped almost exactly by 300, a 17% drop. Readership last year fell again by 3% while over 3,500 newsroom jobs were lost since 2000, a decline of 7%. The TV networks viewership is also way down. No it's not, only certain networks. Is Fox Network viewership down?

But here is Georgie Ann's most troubling thought about all of this "most troubling to me, as a classic foreign correspondent, is the decline in the number of correspondents covering the world -- just at a time, you may have already noted, when we are making huge imperial noises, announcing our importance."

She then goes on to mention book written by Tom Fenton called "Bad News: The Decline of Reporting, the Business of News and the Danger to Us All." I don't have to read the book to know that it's a crock just by the title.

Her use of the book is to say how small the news bureaus have become in comparison to how they used to be. Ah, the good ole' days.

But now we get into the real thing that's troubling our Georgie Ann; "We can pick and choose our news." Yup, that's greatly troubling to her. In her words "And therein lies the problem."

Now listen to her words carefully here "My theory is that we Americans have so picked and chosen our news that we have lost that comprehensive view of the world that only a newspaper gives. You may only read a few stories thoroughly, but you are inexorably exposed to ones you don't choose -- labor news in Detroit, deaths in Darfur, economic successes in Finland, a zoning excess in your own community."

Hey, I know where Georgie can go where they can't pick and choose their news: China! They have a great control over what can and can not be published. I think Georgie would fit in good there.

Next Post: The real reason those like Georgie are troubled.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five