Detroit Press to end home delivery most days

[Chuck Nessa]

We don't know all the crap going on behind the scenes so I decline judgment.

[GA Russell]

Here's a Gallup Poll out today that says that "40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal."

http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conserva...ical-Group.aspx

I point this out not to debate the merits of each position, but only to support my longstanding view that newspapers are selling what people don't want to buy. The papers are liberal, while the people are conservative.

[papsrus]

Here's a Gallup Poll out today that says that "40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal."

http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conserva...ical-Group.aspx

I point this out not to debate the merits of each position, but only to support my longstanding view that newspapers are selling what people don't want to buy. The papers are liberal, while the people are conservative.

Judging by those poll results, most people view themselves as being either moderate or liberal. You misrepresent the results by saying the poll indicates people are conservative.

There are newspapers that are unabashedly conservative. Are the trends in their circulation numbers any different from newspapers at large? If not, strike two.

[GA Russell]

paps, the survey says that only 21% consider themselves liberal. Every major metro paper I'm aware of is liberal, except Rupert Murdoch's neocon papers.

In this poll, the conservatives came in first place with 40%. I don't think it's reasonable for you to link the middle (the moderates) with the distant last place group.

I don't object to there being liberal papers catering to the 21%. But I see the entire industry to cater to that group, and that group is too small. Like I said, they wonder why their sales are a disaster, while they sneer at the largest group, 40% of the market.

And when I say "sneer", I'm not just referring to the editorial page. A ton of criticism has been poured on the New York Times over the years, but I have long wondered why the AP has gotten off scott free. As an example, the AP obituary of Jerry Falwell made it clear that they considered him not a respected leader but rather someone whom they were glad to be rid of.

[The Red Menace]

The AP?! Home of Ron Fournier? Say, they were a joke all right during the election last year--in how biased they were against Obama, courtesy of Mr. Fournier.

[Jazzmoose]

Here's a Gallup Poll out today that says that "40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal."

http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conserva...ical-Group.aspx

I point this out not to debate the merits of each position, but only to support my longstanding view that newspapers are selling what people don't want to buy. The papers are liberal, while the people are conservative.

Judging by those poll results, most people view themselves as being either moderate or liberal. You misrepresent the results by saying the poll indicates people are conservative.

My god, that's a silly response. A larger majority describe themselves as being moderate or conservative. You're misrepresenting the results to a far greater degree than GA Russell.

Of course, I think the idea that the press is liberal is pretty whack in itself (the press is pro-status quo, no matter what that status quo is), so I guess it evens out.

As an example, the AP obituary of Jerry Falwell made it clear that they considered him not a respected leader but rather someone whom they were glad to be rid of.

Hey, it's difficult to mourn an ass pimple...

[The Red Menace]

Yes--how will the AP eulogize Rev. Wright? He's the leftwing equivalent of Falwell...I doubt they'll be singing his praises!

[papsrus]

Here's a Gallup Poll out today that says that "40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal."

http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conserva...ical-Group.aspx

I point this out not to debate the merits of each position, but only to support my longstanding view that newspapers are selling what people don't want to buy. The papers are liberal, while the people are conservative.

Judging by those poll results, most people view themselves as being either moderate or liberal. You misrepresent the results by saying the poll indicates people are conservative.

My god, that's a silly response. A larger majority describe themselves as being moderate or conservative. You're misrepresenting the results to a far greater degree than GA Russell.

Bullshit. I said very clearly either or. I did not say and, and therefore did not lump moderates and liberals together, except as to distinguish that they weren't conservative. The statement that people are conservative based on 40% is incorrect.

And the term you're looking for is "plurality." The "majority" of people, according to this survey, in fact do not identify themselves as conservative.

Of course, I think the idea that the press is liberal is pretty whack in itself (the press is pro-status quo, no matter what that status quo is), so I guess it evens out.

I left that part of it alone. But yes, to a degree. I doubt the "status quo" would always (or even a "majority" of the time) agree, however.

Edited June 15, 2009 by papsrus

[papsrus]

As an example, the AP obituary of Jerry Falwell made it clear that they considered him not a respected leader but rather someone whom they were glad to be rid of.

Do you have a link to the obituary? I'd like to see exactly how "they" characterized him. He was a controversial figure, so if that's what came through, it's not inaccurate. If they said "they were glad to be rid of" him, that's a different story. But I doubt they did.

[papsrus]

Here's the leftist obituary. Judge for yourselves:

SUE LINDSEY

Associated Press

LYNCHBURG, Va. – The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mould the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University, a school executive said. He was 73.

Ron Godwin, the university's executive vice president, said Falwell, 73, was found unresponsive around 10:45 a.m. and taken to Lynchburg General Hospital. "CPR efforts were unsuccessful," he said.

Godwin said he was not sure what caused the collapse, but he said Falwell "has a history of heart challenges."

"I had breakfast with him, and he was fine at breakfast," Godwin said. "He went to his office, I went to mine, and they found him unresponsive."

Falwell had survived two serious health scares in early 2005. He was hospitalized for two weeks with what was described as a viral infection, then was hospitalized again a few weeks later after going into respiratory arrest. Later that year, doctors found a 70 percent blockage in an artery, which they opened with stents.

Falwell credited his Moral Majority with getting millions of conservative voters registered, electing Ronald Reagan and giving Republicans Senate control in 1980.

"I shudder to think where the country would be right now if the religious right had not evolved," Falwell said when he stepped down as Moral Majority president in 1987.

The fundamentalist church that Falwell started in an abandoned bottling plant in 1956 grew into a religious empire that includes the 22,000-member Thomas Road Baptist Church, the Old Time Gospel Hour carried on television stations around the country and 7,700-student Liberty University. He built Christian elementary schools, homes for unwed mothers and a home for alcoholics.

He also founded Liberty University in Lynchburg, which began as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971.

Liberty University's commencement is scheduled for Saturday, with former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich as the featured speaker.

In 2006, Falwell marked the 50th anniversary of his church and spoke out on stem cell research, saying he sympathized with people with medical problems, but that any medical research must pass a three-part test: "Is it ethically correct? Is it biblically correct? Is it morally correct?"

Falwell had once opposed mixing preaching with politics, but he changed his view and in 1979, founded the Moral Majority. The political lobbying organization grew to 6.5 million members and raised $69 million (figures U.S.) as it supported conservative politicians and campaigned against abortion, homosexuality, pornography and bans on school prayer.

Falwell became the face of the religious right, appearing on national magazine covers and on television talk shows. In 1983, U.S. News & World Report named him one of 25 most influential people in America.

In 1984, he sued Hustler magazine for $45 million, charging that he was libelled by an ad parody depicting him as an incestuous drunkard. A federal jury found the fake ad did not libel him, but awarded him $200,000 for emotional distress. That verdict was overturned, however, in a landmark 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that even pornographic spoofs about a public figure enjoy First Amendment protection.

The case was depicted in the 1996 movie The People v. Larry Flynt.

With Falwell's high profile came frequent criticism, even from fellow ministers. The Rev. Billy Graham once rebuked him for political sermonizing on "non-moral issues."

Falwell quit the Moral Majority in 1987, saying he was tired of being "a lightning rod" and wanted to devote his time to his ministry and Liberty University. But he remained outspoken and continued to draw criticism for his remarks.

Days after Sept. 11, 2001, Falwell essentially blamed feminists, gays, lesbians and liberal groups for bringing on the terrorist attacks. He later apologized.

In 1999, he told an evangelical conference that the Antichrist was a male Jew who was probably already alive. Falwell later apologized for the remark but not for holding the belief. A month later, his National Liberty Journal warned parents that Tinky Winky, a purple, purse-toting character on television's Teletubbies show, was a gay role model and morally damaging to children.

Falwell was re-energized after family values proved important in the 2004 presidential election. He formed the Faith and Values Coalition as the "21st Century resurrection of the Moral Majority," to seek anti-abortion judges, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and more conservative elected officials.

The big, blue-eyed preacher with a booming voice started his independent Baptist church with 35 members. From his living room, he began broadcasting his message of salvation and raising the donations that helped his ministry grow.

"He was one of the first to come up with ways to use television to expand his ministry," said Robert Alley, a retired University of Richmond religion professor who studied and criticized Falwell's career.

In 1987, Falwell took over the PTL (Praise the Lord) ministry in South Carolina after Jim Bakker's troubles. Falwell slid fully clothed down a theme park water slide after donors met his fund-raising goal to help rescue the rival ministry. He gave it up seven months later after learning the depth of PTL's financial problems.

Largely because of the Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart scandals, donations to Falwell's ministry dropped from $135 million in 1986 to less than $100 million the following year. Hundreds of workers were laid off and viewers of his television show dwindled.

Liberty University was $73 million in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy, and his Old Time Gospel Hour was $16 million in debt.

By the mid-1990s, two local businessmen with long ties to Falwell began overseeing the finances and helped get companies to forgive debts or write them of as losses.

Falwell devoted much of his time keeping his university afloat. He dreamed that Liberty would grow to 50,000 students and be to fundamentalist Christians what Notre Dame is to Roman Catholics and Brigham Young University is to Mormons. He was an avid sports fan who arrived at Liberty basketball games to the cheers of students.

Falwell's father and his grandfather were militant atheists, he wrote in his autobiography. He said his father made a fortune off his businesses – including bootlegging during Prohibition.

As a student, Falwell was a star athlete and a prankster who was barred from giving his high school valedictorian's speech after he was caught using counterfeit lunch tickets his senior year.

He ran with a gang of juvenile delinquents before becoming a born-again Christian at age 19. He turned down an offer to play professional baseball and transferred from Lynchburg College to Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo.

"My heart was burning to serve Christ," he once said in an interview. "I knew nothing would ever be the same again."

Falwell is survived by his wife, Macel, and three children, Jerry, Jonathan and Jeannie.

[papsrus]

It continues to amaze me that people will claim factual reports are somehow biased because the facts don't comport with their worldview.

The CDC is characterized on another thread as a dishonest advocacy group because some stats they compiled on gun deaths from around the globe don't agree with someone's position on gun control.

Here, the mere mention of Falwell's setbacks, controversial utterances or his position on social issues is magically transformed into "(he is) someone whom they were glad to be rid of." No where in that obituary do I get that message. No where.

Consider that maybe, just maybe, the biases lie somewhere else.

Edited June 15, 2009 by papsrus

[GA Russell]

paps, I have no objection at all to the obit you have posted. Perhaps the obit that was printed in my paper (The News & Observer) was altered by the paper to add their opinion of the man.

[papsrus]

paps, I have no objection at all to the obit you have posted. Perhaps the obit that was printed in my paper (The News & Observer) was altered by the paper to add their opinion of the man.

Perhaps. If so, and it was just opinion, that's not good. I had always thought the News & Observer had a pretty good reputation. But I don't read it.

EDIT: And apologies, GA, for popping off a bit. I didn't have all the facts, only the facts as you presented them -- which were, "an Associated Press obituary."

Edited June 15, 2009 by papsrus

[papsrus]

And for the record, the current state of the newspaper industry has to do primarily with the emergence of the internet and the preference of young people to speak in tongues to one another while networking on their PDA's rather than "read." It also has to do with the industry itself taking on way too much debt, which the overall decline in the economy has exacerbated. The ever-shifting ideological tilt of the readership one way or the other surely has had some impact, but that is at the very least a two-way street, and it is but one piece of a much larger puzzle.