Slate Interview: Its hard living on food stamps

Former colleague of mine moved to Baltimore in the early 80s . . . and then the News-American shut down.

And so he moved to Dallas . . . and then the Times-Herald shut down.

More papers closed their doors in the 80s than have closed their doors in the past 10 years. Many on this board simply lack that point of reference. All they know is the boom-boom 90s and think that was somehow the norm.

 

Is that statistic true? If so it is very telling and eye opening.

If more papers closed in the 80s than in past ten years it just goes to show how you write "alarmist" stuff and it becomes gospel like what we have read about papers closing and all of the doom and gloom

 

It's just a trend that has actually been going on for more than a century.

Big cities used to have 10-12 newspapers. Then 3-4. For a while two-newspaper towns were the norm. Even in relatively medium-sized towns (Knoxville, Charleston, S.C., Fort Wayne, Chattanooga), there were two newspapers in the 80s.

Then the two became one in most places.

 

Of course, the number of papers that closed in the '80s has no bearing on the fact that the industry now is cutting an unprecedented amount of jobs, regardless of whether individual papers keep printing or not.

I'd almost guarantee the industry in the '80s didn't shrink by 15,000 newsroom jobs over five years, like it did from 2007-2012.

EDIT: The 15,000 jobs were in newsrooms. The total job losses at newspapers over that time is more than 42,000.

 

I'll worry about people gaming the public assistance system when we begin means testing farm subsidies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/07/us/billionaires-received-us-farm-subsidies-report-finds.html?_r=0

 

I'm not talking so much about moving for a single job. I'm talking about staying put after the factory closes (or something similar).

If your current local is shedding jobs, and has high unemployment, with no prospect for job growth, it might be time to leave for an area of the country that is doing better.

 

So, why don't we go after farm subsidies?

Are Dems fighting for this?

 

From 1981-1991 the number of general-circulation dailies declined from 1,745 to 1,611.

That's 134 newspapers that shut down. And there weren't any websites for these people to take their talents to, either.

Yahoo.com, ESPN.com, CBSsports.com, et al didn't exist as landing spots for these journalists thrown out of work.

 

That's terrific, but irrelevant until you cite total job loss numbers.

According to ASNE, total newsroom jobs actually peaked at 56,900 in 1990, after adding jobs in almost every year of the previous decade.

It maintained 56,400 jobs by 2001.

Twelve years later, it's at 38,000.

(This table is meant to illustrate minority percentages, but the overall totals are to the left).

http://asne.org/content.asp?pl=140&sl=129&contentid=129

 

We know where there is job growth, both in terms of geography, and sector:

 

I don't know. The Senate passed a (weak) amendment that mean-tested farm (but not other) income.

http://swampland.time.com/2013/11/13/fat-cats-and-food-stamps/#ixzz2l0aqBqbF

My perception is that the public has a higher degree of antipathy for for urban, suburban and rural people living in poverty than it does for wealthy farmers. Maybe part of it is a lack of awareness?

 

It would be great if someone could wave a magic wand and suddenly we'd be able to stop sending assistance to 100 percent of those people who are cheating the system, or we could stop providing assistance to gigantic farm conglomerations that don't need or deserve it. But we all know that's not going to happen. I wish we would do something rather than nothing. Any of us could, in an hour, find a billion dollars in public assistance or farm subsidy programs that are wasteful. I'd rather see that money go toward rebuilding bridges that are about to collapse or any one of a number of programs that cities and states need. A first step is better than no step at all.