A "propaganda arm of the left" going down in flames. Ha ha.

Thanks to AOG. A fascinating piece at Winds of Change, by Tim Oren, on the decline of the newspaper industry, The Newspaper Crash of 2009... And How You Can Help...

There are three reasons the newspaper industry is going down. Perhaps more quickly than we hoped... (Besides the obvious reason that who wants a pile of inky paper when you can read blogs?)

1. The subscription-based economic model is very attractive, but only assuming that the subscriber base is stable or growing. If it is shrinking, and the cost of acquiring new subscribers is growing, you still have the expenses of putting out the paper every day. It's not like a factory you can close until times get better.

2. The newspapers have heaps of debt. Often including billions spent to "aquire" subscribers by buying other papers. Now is not a good time to be trying to refinance.

And #3, my favorite...

...One of the reasons that churn is up for the newspapers is the political bias. I'm with Orson Scott Card on this. The industry has abdicated its social function to support a well-informed electorate, and become a propaganda arm of the left. In so doing, they have sullied their brands and lost the trust of their readers. The economic consequences of this default of their value proposition are now becoming apparent. The Internet and an economic crisis together would be bad enough, but the industry has only itself to blame for the egregious behavior on display for the last few years, and at its worst right now.

This is a blog, and I make no vacuous claims to freedom from bias. You can check everything said above from public records, but I do have a dog in this fight. These people deserve to lose, and if the newspaper industry crashes as a byproduct of the economic crunch, then it's a silver lining for a dark cloud. They have done their level best to trash the political system of my country, and I will dance on their grave when they go.

Is that clear enough?...

Amen, brother.