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Reader Research
“I bought The Salt Lake Tribune this morning for the first time in six months because of the lead front-page article ‘Are Newspapers Sinking?’ The San Francisco Chronicle is finished, and subscriptions are falling from The Los Angeles Times to The New York Times.
“The Tribune can blame the Internet and talk radio, but you won’t face the truth. Your big problem is blatant, one-sided leftist liberalism. Your editorial pages are predictably leftist and full of falsehoods, and it seeps into the rest of the reporting.
“I’ll be delighted when you go bankrupt and [are] forced to close your doors. Utah won’t miss you much.”
—Jay Reid, proud non-subscribing reader,
in letter to the editor, The Salt Lake Tribune (3/24/09)
in letter to the editor, The Salt Lake Tribune (3/24/09)
Editorial Comment: There. Feel better?
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Mr. Reid, I'd agree totally with your complaint if you change the word "leftist" to "rightist" both places. I've been a copy editor, reporter, photographer and other positions on large and small dailies for more than 50 years, and am still a full-time copy editor today for an online news agency. With that credibility, I say you have things 100 percent backward.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, your logic is great. Love your photo.
Ray Dangel
Centennial, CO
It's this kind of naivete that makes me wish a Scrooge-like experience upon these people. If everyone could see what the world would be like if every newspaper shut its doors, then maybe we'd realize that newspapers provide the source material for so much else — the local nightly news, aggregators like Google and Yahoo, etc.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if he would be so delighted by the demise of the Trib, I think he should attend the paper's final day of operation if it does go down. He'd obviously take pleasure in seeing the faces of all those leftist nut jobs he wants out of work.
What a terrible attitude.
What the hell is wrong with you, sending this one out on a Monday morning? You couldn’t wait until Wednesday?
ReplyDelete----
Joe
Hooray for Jay Reid! The very same can be said about the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper. We are sick to death of the liberal, bias reporting.
ReplyDeleteCheryl & John Milan
Every community has these people, but they aren't the scary ones, because I don't think they are the majority. The majority are just apathetic and uninterested.
ReplyDeleteBut here's a different complaint. Some readers have good reason to cancel their subscription. In my own community, wages for reporters are so terrible and management is so inept, that there is a serious shortage of news judgment and writing ability. My husband and I are die-hard newspaper readers, but we're considering dropping our subscription to this small community paper because it's hard to support such a bad imitation of journalism. This isn't a liberal/conservative rant--this is a rant against the fact that part of this downward spiral is self-perpetuating. The people with the purse strings don't understand that good writing and good reporting matters, and the more you cut that--or don't value it by finding management who can mentor young reporters and help get their stories in shape--the more people will stop reading.
Ted,
ReplyDeleteJeezus what a jerk. But then right-wing wackjobs are. Want us to send the Mounties down and git 'im?
Lynda in Toronto
It's all about the business model. I admit to having used that front-page article and it's accompanying article in a different section to convince my boss it wasn't worth buying ads in the newspaper anymore. Thanks for your help, SLTrib!
ReplyDeleteAh! The man contradicted himself! The reason he has the right to have what he said printed is because of a free press. ARGH!
ReplyDeleteDenise