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Journalists and political donations

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by statrat, Jun 21, 2007.

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Is it acceptable for journalists to make political donations?

  1. Yes

    13.6%
  2. No

    45.8%
  3. Only if they are not covering politics

    40.7%
  1. Mighty_Wingman

    Mighty_Wingman Active Member

    Now, I'm not an expert on the world of high finance, since I'm paid what appears to be migrant-worker scale.

    But how would it help the bigwigs of any publicly listed company to claim negative revenues?
     
  2. It would enable them to do what they want to do anyway -- cut personnel to make more money off an inferior product.
     
  3. Mighty_Wingman

    Mighty_Wingman Active Member

    Those bastards!
     
  4. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    What conspiratorial horseshit.
    There is a colossal difference between cutting to maintain a profit margin and cutting "to make more money off an inferior product." Your assertion ignores both principles of Capitalism and common sense.
    Now, if you want to argue newspapers' failure to adapt. If you want to argue newspapers' failure to re-invest. If you want to argue newspapers' failure to market. I will listen. But, not a myopic refrain.
     
  5. Mighty_Wingman

    Mighty_Wingman Active Member

    Besides, judging from my own experience at a Media General paper, revenues -- and quality?? -- are indeed in the toilet.
     
  6. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    Of course they are. You're doing more with less.
    But, you're doing with less because of EBay, Craigslist and AutoTrader.com. You're doing with less because of Google and WalMart. You're doing less because of struggling movie studios.
    Not because of greedy publishers. Publishers, for the most part these days, are beholden to stockholders. And, what does every stockholder want? Performance.
     
  7. Mighty_Wingman

    Mighty_Wingman Active Member

    Hey, I'm on your side, dude.
     
  8. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    I know. I know. I'm a little touchy when it comes to the economics of this industry.
     
  9. And thereby hangs the problem.
    Newspapers are not widget factories.
     
  10. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    Of course they're not "widget" factories. Problem we're living through? Four seven decades, newspapers made mountains more money than widget factories.
    Our current time and place doesn't support that performance. Probably never will. Yet investors are still demanding it. So, our current state resembles that of a vise or being quartered. Whichever visual works better for you.
     
  11. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    Newspapers used to be more or less immune from Wall Street pressure, since all the people that mattered lived in deathly fear of negative coverage plus they all had personal relationships with the families that owned the papers.
    Now that relationship has more or less flipped with hedge funders being the ones telling the newspapers what to do and how to do it.
    And it isn't just newspapers, activist shareholders are often dictating to a variety of companies what to do and how to do it.
    The single thing that draws the most scorn is Class A and B stocks, but that's something for another day.
    What the hedge funders are agitating for in the newspaper business isn't that newspapers are doing poorly now, most media companies are doing very well, it's what is the future going to be like and since no one with any great degree of certainity can say, they all want as much profit now as possible before everything tanks 10 or 20 years down the line.
     
  12. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    I don't disagree.
     
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