Day: 5/29/2009

Fox News: Republicans Divided Over How to Attack Sotomayor

Posted by on May 29, 2009 at 12:21 pm. NO Comments :

An article on FoxNews.com is lamenting the difficult position in which Republicans find themselves with regard to President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court:

“Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee to replace Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court, is posing a conundrum for Republicans who are struggling to unite against a woman they presume will be a reliable vote for liberal causes.

“The GOP doesn’t want to give Sotomayer (sic) a free ride, because they believe she is a judicial activist who will legislate from the bench.”

So what’s the problem? Why don’t they just attack her as a liberal judicial activist? If that’s really their objection to her, it seems that there would be nothing controversial about taking that approach. All they have to do is fire up their slogans about Socialism and set Glenn Beck and his posse loose, and they have the makings of a conventional rightist campaign of obstructionism. The truth is, that isn’t really their objection. The article states that they are…

“…concerned that if they launch a no-holds barred attack on Sotomayor, the first Hispanic to be nominated to the court, they risk alienating a growing minority they want on their side in the voting booth.”

The only way that they can alienate the Hispanic electorate is if they were to oppose Sotomayor on the basis of her race. Consequently, they are inadvertently admitting that that is precisely what they want to do. The argument within the ranks of Republicans is not centered on Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy or record. Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and others have already staked their claims that she is a racist, and that her gender renders her susceptible to that peculiarly feminine characteristic of empathy.

It becomes crystal clear that the dilemma facing Republicans, and Fox News, is tied solely to race and gender when you consider this simple scenario: If the nominee were a white male, would they have any hesitation to executing a straightforward campaign criticizing his record as a jurist?

The fact that there is a debate going on in the party at all, and trumpeted in right-wing media, is conclusive evidence that the real subject of the controversy is the nominee’s race and gender. They just don’t want to admit it. And we can count on Fox to obfuscate that truth and to portray the internecine squabble as something more benign. But if they were truly worried about how Sotomayor would rule as a Justice, then why would criticizing that risk their standing amongst Hispanics?

The answer? It wouldn’t. They’re lying. As usual.

Newspapers Conspiring To Hasten Their Own Demise

Posted by on May 29, 2009 at 11:43 am. NO Comments :

James Warren of The Atlantic reports that a bevy of newspaper executives gathered yesterday in Chicago for a clandestine discussion about “Models to Monetize Content.” Amongst the participants are the New York Times, Gannett, E. W. Scripps, Advance Publications, McClatchy, Hearst Newspapers, MediaNews Group, the Associated Press, Philadelphia Media Holdings, Lee Enterprises and Freedom Communication. The unadorned agenda of this cabal of publishers is to figure out how to make news consumers pick up the tab that advertisers have traditionally paid.

Setting aside the obvious appearance of a violation of anti-trust laws, the main problem with these old-media relics is that they still don’t understand the problems confronting them.

First of all, they aren’t losing money because subscription receipts are declining. Subscription revenue, while not insignificant, was never the foundation of the industry’s financial well being. It is advertisers that keep newspapers (and most media) in business. The value of subscribers is due more to the fact that higher circulation brings higher ad revenue than to the value of the actual subscription price.

Secondly, subscriptions aren’t declining because newspapers cost too much. They are declining because too often the product isn’t worth paying for. That would be true whether it were delivered to your doorstep or your browser. The state of the economy cannot be overlooked as a contributor to the subscriber exodus either. But when newspapers respond to tough economic times by cutting newsroom staff, they have to expect that readers will notice the falloff in quality. Once people perceive that they aren’t getting their money’s worth, they will be no more likely to pay for an online subscription than the dead tree variety.

Warren astutely notes in his article that newspaper executives are not the brightest inks in the well. Many of them are holdovers from an era that hasn’t kept up with modern competition. Others are transplants from TV or radio who lack experience in a medium that has little in common with its electronic cousins. The evidence of their shortcomings is observable in their haste to alter a business model that has worked fine for a couple of hundred years or more. To respond to current financial woes by shifting from a model that relies on advertisers to one that pinches readers is profoundly shortsighted. The economy, and advertising revenues, are bound to recover, but dimwitted decisions by panicky publishers could aggravate and prolong what would otherwise be a temporary setback.

There are challenges facing the newspaper business, to be sure. But there is no reason to presume that the sort of broad distribution model that has led to success in virtually every form of media has suddenly become inoperative. Newspapers need to adapt to the digital world in a manner that promotes access and ubiquity. Walling themselves off by erecting subscription barriers can only make matters worse and result in further isolation and debt.

Finally, if they think that by colluding with one another to set the terms of doing business with them will endear them to their customers, they are even stupider than I thought.