The Pew Research Center finds nearly one-third (31 percent) of more than 2,000 adults surveyed say they have deserted a particular news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to, observes Grumpy Editor.
The survey also uncovers those most likely to have walked away are better educated, wealthier and older than those who did not.
News organizations’ financial problems (including reduced ad revenues and circulation), triggering slashed news staffs and reduced coverage, are prime factors behind the audience recoil.
Yet 60 percent of news consumers say they have heard “a little” or “nothing at all” about financial conditions.
Meanwhile, in a poke at NBC's left-leaning cable operation, Brent Bozell, president of Media Research Center, barks, “don’t dare call MSNBC a news organization.”
Referring to a Pew Research Center poll, Bozell says only 15 percent of MSNBC air time is devoted to straight news reporting (vs. 45 percent at Fox News) with the remainder described as commentary.
Tasty job in Texas
With growing newspaper staff cutbacks, titles such as science editor, aviation editor, boating editor, investigative reporter and such, are fast disappearing.
However, here’s a first: barbecue editor.
Daniel Vaughn joins Texas Monthly, which focuses on the Lone Star State’s politics, environment and education, along with Texas food.
He is being hailed as the only full-time barbecue staffer on a major U.S. newspaper or magazine.
Texas Monthly editor in chief Jake Silverstein says Vaughn “is one of the state’s foremost experts on the subject of smoked meat,” adding, “his passion for the subject is unrivaled. He understands good barbecue, he understands what it takes to make great barbecue, and most important of all, he understands the way that with good barbecue --- as with all the world’s great traditional foods --- cuisine and culture are completely intertwined.”
That’s certainly a tastier position than the police beat.
In case you missed these…
Getting heavy play in print and broadcast media last week was salt, with coverage focusing on a study that claims too much sodium intake contributed to 2.3 million deaths from heart attacks, strokes and other heart-related diseases worldwide in 2010. Could a focus on the effects of pepper be next, then soy sauce?...Most interesting headline of the week illustrates where U.S. taxpayers’ money is going: $384,949 Federal Study Looks at “Plasticity in Duck Penis Length.” The CNSnews.com story notes the National Science Foundation issues that grant --- made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus package --- to Yale University for a study on “Sexual Conflict, Social Behavior and the Evolution of Waterfowl Genitalia.” The study aims to show age, environment and breeding changes can impact the penis length of certain ducks.
Endless winter: Two words absent in weather coverage as unseasonal cold weather and snowstorms sweep across the Midwest and East at the start of spring --- global warming. The U.S. is on track for the coldest March in 17 years...The late movie producer and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio executive Louis B. Mayer would have chased out of his office (and perhaps Culver City) creators of a “zombie romantic comedy” script that goes like this: A walking corpse eats the brain of a young fighter, falls in love with the dead man’s girl friend and slowly becomes more human. But it has been made into a movie, “Warm Bodies,” now showing
The Kiplinger Letter sums up current “not good” economic conditions in one compact paragraph: “Growth is listless. For every job that’s open there are three job seekers. Nearly 8 million part timers can’t find full-time work. Wages are stagnant. Export growth is lackluster, and average home prices…still 15 percent below the peak.”
“Swift” progress: Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, on CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday, declares the Obama administration has a plan to eliminate a 600,000-case backlog in veterans’ disability and compensation claims --- by 2015…Not getting much coverage: A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of likely voters believe everyone should be required to prove his or her U.S. citizenship before being allowed to register to vote…Four days into spring, Target Corp. --- in an ad in yesterday’s newspapers --- pitches a portable ice maker with “our lowest price of the season.”
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