Why is my front lawn increasingly littered with papers I didn’t ask for and don’t want?
Is it because the papers in question can then count me as a willing recipient, thus puffing up drastically sinking circulation stats? Repeatedly, I have turned down subscription offers, both over the phone and in the mail. Still, like my neighbors, I am forced on a daily basis to pick up red plastic wrapped litter that immediately finds a home in the blue recycle bin.
Even with all the lunatic fringe lurking on the perimeter, perhaps the best thing that has happened in service to the truth, is the explosion of potential media outlets, both on TV and PC. Presently, in most areas there are dozens of news and public affairs options on the telly, and thousands of possibilities via the net.
No longer is “information” on our world sifted and funneled through a small broadcast/printing press network bottle-neck. It is now easy for almost anyone to gain insight and perspective from a plethora of sources, from all around the globe.
Technology has thus afforded us a kind of liberation from the media elites, with reporters and staff members who are at least as biased as you and me, except that they don’t admit it.
Case in point… The widespread shrinking of newspaper circulation is well known and most easily quantifiable. So, how often has this enormous signpost on the path of a radically changing culture ever made headlines in, say, The New York Times? After all, isn’t the NYT “the paper of record”? Isn’t this news causing the loss of 1,000’s and 1,000’s of jobs “fit” enough to print?
How is it that the upper echelons of the fourth estate commonly hone in on a host of perceived ills in our society, yet they cannot seem to investigate and report on themselves?
Personally, it appears to be disingenuous at best to go about heaving products around a neighborhood, turning unwitting occupants into “customers”. I am sure this isn’t what’s being done. Forget any implication thus far set forth.
Papers are not primarily in business to serve themselves. And surely journalists with any decent amount of professional integrity would never sink to such a low level practice.
No doubt, as consumers continue to choose other options, apart from print media, the “press” will make some honest assessment and adaptation. Of course, even if they don’t, the truth will out, and hard economic reality will eventually win the day.
Thus my lawn will be clean.
BillKeane Perceptions 