Blog maps out changes in STL P-D coverage

No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

H.L. Mencken

 

It's that kind of thinking that has helped the newspaper industry reach the peak of popular esteem it currently enjoys. Bravo.

 

Sorry, wingman, but the esteem in which we are held is not nearly as low as so many of you seem to think.

 

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/564/internet-news-audience

55 percent of readers surveyed in this Pew poll think "news organizations" don't care about the people they report on. One reason they think that just might be because so many people in news organizations are smug elitists who love to underestimate "the common people" and congratulate themselves about it.

That Mencken quote makes for a hell of a soundbite, but as a worldview, it's pretty pathetic.

 

The Mencken quote was meant sarcastically.
And that same Pew poll says 78% view their local daily newspaper favorably.
I'll take 78% liking what we do.

 

I think if the readers knew how much of a cash cow newspapers are (I understand the St. Louis P-D has a profit margin of 31 FUCKING percent) I don't think they would have much faith in newspapers being "transparent" about telling their readers they are getting less of a product for the same price.
Most newspaper bosses and the redesign douche bags have little to no respect for the intelligence of the readers.

 

Stu Durando, the Illinois writer, hasn't said anything about the paper's changing coverage or why he hasn't been at media days. At least I haven't seen that in any of his posts, but the U of I beat is also taking a lot of the budget cuts, which is probably why he isn't mentioning things.