At 10:28 AM 8/7/01, Nick Arnett wrote:
>Well, here goes again. I'd like to offer a concrete example of what I
>regard as a fundamental failure of the free market that has profoundly
>negative effects for the public -- the fact that in nearly all U.S. cities
>of any size, there is only daily newspaper.
(1) I'm assuming that you meant to say "� there is only ONE daily newspaper."
If so,
(2) The truth of your statement must depend on what you define as "U.S.
cities of any size."
Chicago is, what?, the third-largest city in the US, and its two papers,
the Trib and the Sun-Times, are both well-known.
I'm not sure precisely where Denver ranks in size, but it has the _Denver
Post_ and the _Rocky Mountain News_.
Atlanta has the _Atlanta Journal_ and the _Atlanta Constitution_.
Smaller cities (under 1,000,000 in the MSA):
Salt Lake City has the _SL Tribune_ and the _Deseret News_.
Birmingham, AL has the _Birmingham News_ and the _Birmingham Post-Herald_.
(There may be other examples, but these are the ones I came up with off the
top of my head: in many cases, of course, because I've lived in or near
these cities at one time or another and read both papers regularly.)
I know that there is some co-operation between the two papers in some
cities (and there well may be in other cities whose papers I'm not as
familiar with). For example, the two papers in Salt Lake share the same
classified ads, and in Atlanta and Birmingham, the two papers publish a
combined edition on weekends (M-F, one is the "morning paper" and the
other is the "afternoon paper.")
Also, in most cities of any size in the US, you can get _The New York
Times_, _The Wall Street Journal_ and _USA Today_ at least in every
bookstore or newsstand, and frequently in every convenience store or from
boxes on every corner downtown*, making those essentially national newspapers.
-----
*Except when you're actually looking for a copy, then they all seem to be
sold out <g>.
-----
And on this topic, here's something I received this morning:
Subject: [Randy's Random] Did you read the paper? Which one?
============================================================
Now, on to today's item. The first part is from my files, and I pulled it
up to give context to the second part.
The first section actually refers to British newspapers. In the U.K.,
newspapers are still important -- like they used to be in the U.S. <smirk>
London, for instance, has SEVERAL strong papers. The question is, who reads
which newspaper? The funny reply, which has a lot of truth in it, is:
+ The Times: Read by the people who run the country.
+ Daily Mirror: Read by the people who think they run the country.
+ Guardian: Read by the people who think they ought to run the country.
+ Morning Star: Read by the people who think the country ought to be run by
another country.
+ Daily Mail: Read by the wives of the people who own the country.
+ Financial Times: Read by people who own the country.
+ Daily Express: Read by the people who think that the country ought to be
run as it used to be.
+ Daily Telegraph: Read by the people who think it still is.
+ The Sun: Their readers don't care who runs the country as long as she has
big tits.
The second part, then, has just started going around -- updated for the
Internet era:
+ WSJ.com is accessed by people who run the country.
+ NYTimes.com is accessed by people who think they run the country.
+ WashingtonPost.com is accessed by people who think they ought to run the
country.
+ USAToday.com is accessed by people who think they ought to run the
country but who don't understand WSJ.com, NYTimes.com, or WashingtonPost.com.
+ LATimes.com is accessed by people who wouldn't mind running the country
if they had spare time on their studio calendars.
+ BostonGlobe.com is accessed by people whose parents used to run the country.
+ NYDailyNews.com is accessed by people who aren't sure who runs the country.
+ NYPost.com is accessed by people who don't care who runs the country so
long as scandals occur.
+ SFGate.com is accessed by people who aren't sure there is a country to
run or that anyone is running it.
+ Herald.com is accessed by the people who run the countries south of Miami.
(And, I'll add, ThisisTrue.com is read by the people who are VERY grateful
that they don't run the country.)
==^================================================================
+ Randy Cassingham, author of "This is True" * [EMAIL PROTECTED] +
| http://www.thisistrue.com * autoresponder [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
+ FIGHT SPAM! Send blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] for details +
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--Ronn! :)
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I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon.
I never dreamed that I would see the last.
--Dr. Jerry Pournelle
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