Morale, and Profits, down at the Times

That's the New York Times, folks, and the headline here is re-appropriated from Howard Kurtz piece in this morning's Washington Post. (You'll probably need to register at the site to follow the link.) The gist of his article, well sourced at least when it comes to facts and figures at the NYT and other papers, is that the Great Gray Lady's readership is down and so the worker bees are getting sacked. This is not uncommon in the high-tech and consulting businesses, of course, where Wonker currently labors. But it's somewhat unusual for the tenured swelled heads in the MSM's print hives who will now, presumably, have to live in the real world the rest of us have always inhabited.

Kurtz' spin, which seems almost unconscious in a way, basically follows Pinch Sulzberger's Party Line, in that journos like Judith Miller (whom Pinch championed only a few weeks ago for her jailhouse stand) have gotten too close to their Bush admin chums and have turned into mere mouthpieces for W, which fact is alienating the loyal readership. He concludes:

Except for an uptick during Hurricane Katrina, the media's stock seems to be in a gradual decline -- journalistically, financially and psychologically. That is unlikely to change as long as journalists keep behaving in ways that alienate their audiences.

Problem is that Kurtz and others miss the real point. Readers don't blame Miller at all for being "too close" to anyone. What they do object to is that the MSM has essentially merged with the entertainment industry. They don't air discussions, they broadcast screaming matches. They don't follow election issues, they chart horse races and tout the odds. They don't air both sides of a discussion, they parrot Democratic talking points. They don't provide the details of killer storms like Katrina and the aftermath, they hype up wildly exaggerated death tolls that make Bush look bad (as if he spun up the hurricane to eliminate minority Kerry voters), and then fail to print corrections later for this indefensibly erroneous reporting.

This two-facedness has become particularly obvious in the Washington Post of late, as evidenced by its relentless attacks on the Bushies for everything, alleging Bush unpopularity is at an all-time high and basing this factoid on--ta-da--a poll they commissioned, knowing full well that Post polls are always biased to tilt in favor of the Democrats. (They're too lazy to do a real story.)

Even as the press savaged the Clintonistas during Bill's second term, this was always more of a shark swarm to attract advertising and readership than an attempt to weaken his presidency. When it came to Starr's actual perjury charge against Clinton, however, the press trumpeted a legal distinction--which does not exist--alleging that perjury regarding sexual peccadilloes is somehow less serious than perjury about whether you specifically remembered a given conversation. (The law makes no such distinction.) I.e., they ultimately made excuses for Bill after smacking him down a bit, ultimately conjuring up a miasma of ridicule toward special prosecutor Starr that made it impossible for Clinton's Senate impeachment trial to be taken seriously, which it was not. So Bill kept his job, the Republicans were made to look ridiculous, and the excuse was that, after all, it was just sex.

In the case of the current Libby-Rove non-scandal, the MSM are now trying to spin this story into something of grave national importance--more evidence that "Bush lied," their current meme-of-the-month. This, of course, ignores the fact that everyone, including Clinton and the beloved French (whose country continues to get torched by roving, largely Islamofascist gangs of the unemployed) had proclaimed throughout the 1990s that Saddam indeed possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction.

But, just as the public figured out that the MSM was backing Clinton by attempting to trivialize Monicagate, so too are they wise to spot the MSM's efforts targeting and magnifying the importance of the current WMD-Wilson-Plame flap vis-a-vis the "Bush Lied" meme. Both the attempts to build Bill up and tear W down have been manifestly obvious to alert readers and TV viewers for years. And it is THIS--not alleged and unprovable MSM collusion with the Bushies--that is causing the public to tune out the MSM and head for the blogs and for alternative news sources.

The public--hungry for real information upon which THEY will make informed judgments--is not finding the information they need from the MSM, which more and more serves as both a nonstop advertising medium and as a collective shill for the Democratic Party. So the Great Unwashed are turning to more reliable, better sourced sites on the Web and bypassing the MSM. That, not coziness with the Bushies, is what's driving them away from the MSM and consequently driving down the MSM's profit margins.

Booted reporters, their editors, and their management have only themselves to blame for the decline in their fortunes. And that's the real story Kurtz should be addressing. As always, we won't hold our breath. These guys will be the last to figure it out.