Pelosi Wants to Save Fossils
According to this article, Prime Minister Speaker Pelosi favors saving dinosaurs, aka the print editions of newspapers. I suspect that it isn’t the only fossilized thinking she’s done lately.
Pelosi’s spokesman, Brendan Daly, said the speaker was moved by the recent announcement by the Hearst Corp., the parent company of The Chronicle, that it would be forced to sell or close the paper if it could not achieve major cost-savings quickly. Hearst has said the paper lost $50 million last year and that this year’s losses will probably be worse.
The Chronicle’s largest union, representing nearly 500 employees, ratified a contract Saturday that will clear the way for at least 150 job cuts while also eliminating certain rights and benefits. Another Hearst paper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, will cease publication today and become a Web-only news outlet, Hearst said Monday.
“She’s been a big fan of newspapers her whole life,” Daly said. “She wants to ensure their survival, but is also very concerned about antitrust laws. We have to make sure we follow the well-established guidelines of the Justice Department.”
Why should newspapers get a helping hand from Uncle Sam to survive? If they’re economically viable, fine, let them continue publishing. If they aren’t, let them follow the path of the unicorn.
People are understanding that print editions of newspapers will soon be a thing of the past, with the Wall Street Journal being a likely exception. Printing off newspapers costs lots of money, meaning they aren’t competitive with newspapers like Politico.com and other online newspapers.
With revenues from advertising still declining, what newspaper can afford the expense of running the presses, paying the operators, etc.? Those things alone put these fossils at a competitive disadvantage.
Nonetheless, Speaker Pelosi wants to preserve these inneficient fossils at taxpayer expense. It’s time to let them die. There’s no reasonable justification for letting them survive, especially if they need the federal government’s assistance in staying alive. That’s proof that they need to go the way of the passenger pigeon.
Technorati Tags: <Newspapers, Fossils, Passenger Pigeon, Extinction, Speaker Pelosi, Overhead, Operating Costs, Ad Revenues
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog