I subscribe to the Sunday Denver Post. The daily edition is so thin, it’s worthless. I feel bad about the journalists who are losing their careers and being cast adrift in what is a very ugly economy; they’ll be lucky to even get a gig at Wal-Mart. However, as unionized employees, I wonder why they didn’t fight and show some solidarity and go on strike. Furthermore, where were they when this was happening to industrial workers all over the country?
Another observation: newspapers only work well when there are two in major cities. It’s called competition. When the San Francisco Examiner went bust (it now exists as a skinny tabloid), the San Francisco Chronicle became a cheerleading outfit for techies and yuppies. The Denver Post is similar in that respect. For example, there was recently a controversy about whether or not Amazon should open its second national campus in Denver. We got cheerleading about the average wage of an Amazon worker $50,000 a year, and how great this would be for the local economy. We did not get much about how this would exacerbate the housing crisis in Denver nor traffic congestion, and nothing about the scandalous wages paid to the workers in the distribution centers i.e. “work for us and we’ll help sign you up for food stamps, and you’ll have to pee in a bottle to make your quota, and by the way, we’re going to monitor your every move with an ankle or wrist bracelet.”
Finally, I’d like to point out that there are other ways to organize a business, namely as co-ops or non-profits. No business intrinsically needs to make a profit for shareholders. If the workers, managers, and executives get paid what they’re worth, there is no need to send money on top of that to Wall Street. It would be far better economically to pay the employees that money so it gets spent locally.
Sorry for the rant, folks, it’s just my ignorant opinion.
Awesome job, guys (and thanks)! We desperately need to be having more conversations about the precarious state of journalism. As Jefferson said, a functioning democracy depends on a free and independent press to keep the populace informed. When a hedge fund runs a newspaper, we’re treading on thin ice.
Comments
I subscribe to the Sunday Denver Post. The daily edition is so thin, it’s worthless. I feel bad about the journalists who are losing their careers and being cast adrift in what is a very ugly economy; they’ll be lucky to even get a gig at Wal-Mart. However, as unionized employees, I wonder why they didn’t fight and show some solidarity and go on strike. Furthermore, where were they when this was happening to industrial workers all over the country?
Another observation: newspapers only work well when there are two in major cities. It’s called competition. When the San Francisco Examiner went bust (it now exists as a skinny tabloid), the San Francisco Chronicle became a cheerleading outfit for techies and yuppies. The Denver Post is similar in that respect. For example, there was recently a controversy about whether or not Amazon should open its second national campus in Denver. We got cheerleading about the average wage of an Amazon worker $50,000 a year, and how great this would be for the local economy. We did not get much about how this would exacerbate the housing crisis in Denver nor traffic congestion, and nothing about the scandalous wages paid to the workers in the distribution centers i.e. “work for us and we’ll help sign you up for food stamps, and you’ll have to pee in a bottle to make your quota, and by the way, we’re going to monitor your every move with an ankle or wrist bracelet.”
Finally, I’d like to point out that there are other ways to organize a business, namely as co-ops or non-profits. No business intrinsically needs to make a profit for shareholders. If the workers, managers, and executives get paid what they’re worth, there is no need to send money on top of that to Wall Street. It would be far better economically to pay the employees that money so it gets spent locally.
Sorry for the rant, folks, it’s just my ignorant opinion.
??
Awesome job, guys (and thanks)! We desperately need to be having more conversations about the precarious state of journalism. As Jefferson said, a functioning democracy depends on a free and independent press to keep the populace informed. When a hedge fund runs a newspaper, we’re treading on thin ice.