media in 2009

I am writing a post on media news, since we really are changing the amount and the type of information we see, read and hear. In this, the Information Age, and in the current economic crisis, advertisers are cutting back. Approximately 4/5 of newspapers are paid for through advertising. With advertisers cutting budgets, there are some newspapers folding. (This is true of magazines, and other media, as well. You may wonder why magazine subscriptions are so cheap these days - it is to keep up a subscription base to keep up advertising income!)

CBC's "Q" has begun the discourse:
"Venerable news institutions are facing extinction, and with them the kind of reporting that's key to any functioning democracy. Two economists boldly suggested in the New York Times that the answer is to subsidize the news."

Gian Gomeshi featured Salon.com and discussed this topic. Salon.com is a rather unsatisfying e-rag, in my opinion. The ads are enervating, to topics mystifying -more along the lines of the Enquirer! I don't think that using taxpayer dollars for this is the right way to go. The theory of ad-supported media has its issues but...

I bitterly resent advertising on my Internet, too. I have written about the preponderance of ads aimed at seniors, and aides for seniors, much like the products aimed at parents aiming to teach their child to read before they are 2, and become toilet-trained before they walk.

Back when newspapers were begun, at the turn of the century, they were pennies an issue, and you knew that each one had it's own bias and target audience. As they evolved and changed from 1/5 of revenue from ads, to the current 4/5, advertisers began to control the absence or presence of bias in reporting. How irritating it is to

We must ensure that we know is going on locally, regionally, provincially (state-wide!), federally, across the continents, and around the world. What happens in one part of the world can and does have an effect across the globe.

We have some delightful local papers, but they, too, are having a strong presence on-line. Even in Central and Northern Ontario, we are going high-tech. I say 'even', because with dial up in remote locations some people are hard-pressed to keep up on top of the news. Here, in Northern & Central Ontario, with a lower average annual income, many do not buy a newspaper on a regular basis.

We rely, too, on local and regional newspapers to get any coverage of municipal issues and politics. The Toronto Star is Toronto-centric, and the Globe & Mail more of a national paper, which totally ignores rural and suburban issues.

Then, as my blog-friend commented, "Am I just becoming a grumpy old woman?" She is fed up with magazines and the visual images they portray. This is true for me, too. We have a magazine in Canada, Zoomers, and they have a fairly basic and puerile web site, but the mag actually features people with life experiences, accomplishments and gray hair and wrinkles.

Real people want real information and real news they can trust. Perhaps this is part of the reason for the the slow down in media ads. People are relying on the Internet, yet how frustrating to keep reading comments from those who post. I just want the news story - unbiased information.