Why are newspapers dying? St. Louis Post Dispatch terminates Sylvester Brown Jr.

[GumboYaYa]

I say the papers are dying because they stopped serving their communities. They sold out to advertisers and the political establishment.

They forgot the words of Joseph Pulitzer, "Always fight for progress and reform … never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare … never be afraid to attack wrong ...."

Today Sylvester Brown Jr., the only remaining African American columnist at the St. Louis Post Dispatch (outside of the Sports Department) held a press conference to announce that he was being terminated from the Post Dispatch for violating ethics rules. Apparently an organization, the Summit Council for World Peace, had offered to reimburse him for an airplane ticket when he flew to Washington D.C. for one day to attend a press conference. The Post used this extremely specious basis to rid itself of a columnist who just weeks before had been the sole voice in St. Louis to criticize Mayor Francis Slay and his powerful allies as Slay sought his third term as Mayor. Strangely, Sylvester disappeared from the Post weeks before the election, never to be heard of again. The whole story is posted at: sylvesterbrownjr.blogspot.com

For years we have watched our newspapers shrink from once strong institutions as the corporate interests and political establishment have used advertisement dollars and access to power to stifle the voices of the oppressed and disenfranchised in our communities. Sylvester Brown's dismissal is just one more example of the decline of the industry.

Just wait, it won't be much longer before you see the headline that the St. Louis Post Dispatch is going out of business.

[BlooInBloo]

1. Here's why.....

http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/

[aikoaiko]

2. The internets killed the newspaper star

these things happen.

[GumboYaYa]

4. Newspapers have websites and some use them very effectively......

That is a convenient answer, but I think it is deeper than the means of distributing the media. Look at the Times Picayune in New Orleans: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13984564

The paper started to strive after Katrina. During and after the storm they have taken the role of challenging government seriously and standing up for citizens. The paper is a major force in the city and is growing.

[aikoaiko]

21. Yes, but there is much more competition for the local because of the intenet

Some of them are other newspapers and some of the are TV news, radio news, or just internet news.

As far as the Times Picayune, it stands as an exception to the rule but most papers are not faced with the extraordinary circumstance of post-Katrina life and not all papers can rise up to the moment to be extraordinary in response.

[imdjh]

3. I haven't had it delivered in years

1- it's dirty: ink and dust

2- it's wasteful: half the time I didn't read it and the other half all I read was the editorials and the occasion feature

3- it's annoying: it had always annoyed me that they make you page through the paper to finish an article and then go back to the front page for the next one

4- it has become even more annoying: The "AP stylebook" is another way of saying bad grammar, bad sentence and paragraph construction, and bad editing

5- I can't change the text size to suit me

[KamaAina]

5. Ahem... the "Summit Council for World Peace" is a Moonie front group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unification_Church_affiliated_organizations#Political__organizations

The Summit Council for World Peace is an international group active in Moon's effort to unite North and South Korea.

Bloorg. Well, at least ol' Sylvester should be able to catch on at the Moonie Times. :eyes:

Sad, isn't it, that the phrase "World Peace" automatically raises a Moonie-related red flag for me? I lived near Bridgeport, CT when the University of Bridgeport was hoovered up by the "Professors World Peace Academy". :puke:

[GumboYaYa]

7. Different group. There ar eprobably several Sumit Councils fror World Peace

This organization was founded by a former congressman from East St. Louis and has nothing to do with North or South Korea.

[KamaAina]

10. If the former congressman is Walter Fauntroy, it's them

http://www.summitcouncil.org/about

Executive Committee...

Hon. Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy,
Director, Office of Interreligious Affairs; Member of U.S. Congress (1971-91)

The East STL connection might be here:

http://www.summitcouncil.org/east-st-louis-offers-solution-to-america%E2%80%99s-energy-and-economic-crisis_1060

East STL factoid: Buckminster Fuller, who taught at the nearby SIU campus, once proposed replacing the entire city with what looked like a huge scale model of a stadium, which he said could house over 100,000 people and dubbed "Old Man River's City".



edit: Brown's blog states that the trip in question was the very one linked to at the Summit Council:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/columnists.nsf/sylvesterbrownjr/story/157FC7B9591FA41886257585000A1FC0?OpenDocument

Busted!

[GumboYaYa]

11. Geez, I had no idea, but still it doesn't justify terminating the only black

columnist b/c the group offers to reimburse a flight.

[KamaAina]

15. What's really sad is that the STL fishwrap had only one black columnist to begin with

and, we now know, him apparently a Moonie sympathizer to boot.

That kind of insensitivity to a substantial portion of their potential readership, rather than this one incident, may be why newspapers (at least this one) are dying. The spinning sound you hear is Joseph Pulitzer spinning in his grave...

edit: header

[GumboYaYa]

16. I can assure you that Sylvester is no moonie sympathizer.

He is one of my closest and dearest friends.

[KamaAina]

18. I guess he was duped, then

Few people are as Moonie-aware as I, thanks to the UB fiasco.

Bad Moonies! Go to your room! :spank:

[GumboYaYa]

20. It is not something I would have ever thought of or worried about.

[azul]

6. I like reading papers for news, even some ads are ok for local businesses.

What I don't like is news stories that are editorialized or corporatized or false.

The papers are losing it because they don't spend the money and energy on good reporting of the salient stories, lost the trust and interest of their readers.

Local papers seem to be doing ok, but the large ones are owned by big corporations with many conflicting business interests and people just don't trust them with the news anymore.

[Kaleva]

8. I go to the interent for news

Haven't bought a newspaper in ages.

[Trajan]

9. The age of the newspaper is at an end ....

Given the ubiquitous availability of electronic media of ALL types .... It seems the actual paper copy is a waste of time, money and resources ...

This doesnt mean that newspaper organizations will die ... They simply need to provide the same components of style and editorial content within the new electronic paradigm ....

In this case: death will bring life ...

[spag68]

12. News on the internet

Unless they figure out a way to make it pay, even the internet news will be taken over by wealthy propagandists. Hopefully it won't happen, but if it does we will all be losers. I read some 6 newspapers at c-span, but still buy the NY Times and Newsday on occasion and on Sundays just to get length of story and other stuff that is local.

[azul]

13. Books too?

You will have to tear the books from my cold hands.

[GumboYaYa]

14. Exactly, but many newspapers have reacted to the web by reaching out to corporate interests

to preserve their franchises (which are quickly dying) rather than use the new media to continue to serve the communities in which they operate. They fire columnists like Sylvester Brown when they challenge the corporate interests, when in fact they should be empowering those writers with new media tools and presence to promote their issues and enrich their communities.

[Demeter]

17. Too Heavy a Debt Load for too Little Hard News

plus the general drought of advertising money to operate on. Heck of a job, guys!

[L0oniX]

19. Advertising dropped off as well as the jobs section.