The newspaper business is in trouble and for good reason. On March 19, according to the Philadelphia Bulletin, "A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee. The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a 'a game changer.'"
Recently Barack Obama, a guest on the Jay Leno show, stuck his foot in his mouth by telling an insensitive joke featuring the Special Olympics, forcing him to apologize. The Internet instantly was abuzz about Obama's failed joke. The White House quickly issued a statement saying he was merely joking and didn't mean to disparage the developmentally challenged. The incident was widely covered and drove the online news cycle for nearly 24 hours. Oddly, the newspaper that claims to cover "all the news that is fit to print," missed it. The New York Times' Helene Cooper, while covering Obama's appearance on the show, failed to mention his blooper.
For Cooper not to mention it, even in passing, shows she was engaged in a type of politically motivated censorship. A more serious dereliction of duty is The New York Times' decision to forgo printing the ACORN story prior to the fall election. Editors who made this decision were violating the long- influential paper's mission statement in order to influence a political campaign.
Recently the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a paper we can describe as left of The New York Times from years of reading it, ceased printing and went Web-only. The reason they said they stopped delivering the daily news on doorsteps was a shortage of advertisers and readers. The P-I management would have us believe both disappeared because of Internet competition, claiming to be victims of technology.
We think the newspaper's killer is more profound and not only the result of technology changes. A politically correct and liberal-biased newspaper industry that engages in censorship is the real reason for the industry's woes and decline. Many so-called "mainstream" newspapers are biased in favor of political liberalism, thus driving those who want a more complete reporting of the news to the Internet.
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