Newspaper Page Text
Page 19 November 12, 2023
Commentary
StarNews / StarNews Online
www.starnewsgaonline.com
“Not just what happened, but what matters’’
Susan m. horn
EDITOR/PUBLISHER
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Hmmm. Google is advertising in newspapers.
“The Expanding News Desert”
“Ghost papers: Journalists find them
selves alone or with just a few left in the
newsroom”
“Since 2005, the country has lost
more than one-fourth of its newspapers”
“The Shrinking Newsroom Crisis
Will Be Impossible To Ignore in 2024”
“The loss of local news is a crisis for
democracy” and “Half of Americans
got their ‘news’ from social media, with Facebook as the most popular”
Columnist Lee Hamilton writes (see column this page), “Studies have
shown that, without strong local news, there’s more corruption in govern
ment ... cause of the dysfunction we’re currently seeing in Congress.”
As adult Americans become increasingly and frighteningly less able to
distinguish between a story written craftily to push an agenda - whether a
political agenda or for promotion of a brand or product or simply pure enter
tainment - newspapers have been squeezed into the chicken-position of
scrambling to please what they perceive as the majority of readers - who
are the market for a newspaper’s advertisers/subscribers. Advertisers are the
fuel for a newspaper. Advertising/subscription dollar s make the next edition
possible. Advertising/subscription dollars determine a newspaper’s number
of pages. Advertising/subscription dollar s determine the number of copies
and how far those copies travel. This is why StarNews has been conducting
its Subscription Drive for months now. Please subscribe. (Seepage 26.)
UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media’s Knight Chair in
Journalism and Digital Media Economics, Penelope Muse Abernathy wr ote
on reasons that lead to a “ghost newspaper”: one was newspapers changing
the nature of their' publications. She said, “Between 2004 and 2018, almost
600 once-stand-alone newspapers - or one-thir d of the 1,800 papers that the
country lost - became advertising supplements, free-distribution shoppers or
lifestyle specialty publications.” Meaning, these newspapers shifted from
publishing news to either just lifestyle (recipes/games/crosswords/emotional
stories about people), or to no news and became a shopper.
Why would a newspaper change? Because newspaper publishers/owners’
mistakenly think that social media “readers” ar e the ones they need to sat
isfy. Social media sharing repeats to ad nauseam of a temporarily flooded
parking lot, seasonal recipe, cat meme, or a recap of last year ’s photos has
skewered the frightened brains of newspaper publishers into thinking, “OH,
THAT’s what the buying public wants to read”. No. THAT’s what they want
to read ON SOCIAL MEDIA. They alr eady get that fluff there.
Also contributing to shr inking newsrooms/newspapers is that for us who
have continued to do real news, working hard to research, cover, and edit,
and then sell ADs and subscriptions to pay for the costs of that har d work -
GOOGLE has been raiding our websites since the 1990s taking - not pur
chasing - our news stories at will and then making a googillion dollars off
same stolen stories. The anti-trust lawsuit concerning search engines against
GOOGLE has begun. Ironically, GOOGLE has purchased full page ADs
and double-truck ADS (two facing pages in the center of a newspaper) in
big city physical papers (WSJ, NY Times) informing us on how much we
need that particular' search engine. GOOGLE directly caused the decimation
of America’s Free Press bringing us to our knees financially. Now,
GOOGLE needs what we have and they never had: the physical newspa
per’s incredible and honest power to reach the American public dir ectly. The
newspaper is there forever in print and cannot be changed at a whim or to
correct errors as online news is: “Unpublishing the Online News”.
At StarNews, we know our readers want real news. And we - the few of
us left, as our newsroom, sales room, distribution room and graphics room
have shrunk (by two-thirds since The Great Recession and The Great
Pandemonium) - will continue to deliver it to the best of our abilities for as
long as we can afford to do so. The thanks goes to our advertisers, subscrib
ers, and readers! Please take some time to contact the advertisers in this
newspaper and thank them for their support of this locally owned, locally
operated community newspaper. Please subscribe. (See page 26.)
America: a collapsing democratic western civilization country
"Freedoms we have put down in
the West, particularly the Freedom of
Speech is predicated on the viewpoint
that human existence is worthwhile,
that we should orient ourselves
continually upward. Some people
think this is a good idea and some
people take the opposite tack. Like
America, you are watching the
collapse of a democratic western
civilization countiy. It is happening
one step at a time. ”
- Jordan Peterson on the recent
decline of freedoms in Canada
Jordan Peterson has characterized
himself as a classic British liberal and
a traditionalist but is commonly mis
taken as “right wing”. Peterson sup
ports universal healthcare, redistribu
tion of wealth towards the poor and
decriminalization of drugs. The media
generally cast him as a “far-right
boogeyman riding the wave of a
misogynistic backlash”.
Peterson was an associate professor
at Harvard in the psychology depart-
Travis
PITTMAN
GEORGIA TECH
Beta Theta Pi
tpittman4787@comcast.net
ment until 1998 where he was known
for taking on controversial and uncon
ventional projects; returning to
Canada to become a full professor at
the University of Toronto.
He has been actively involved in
podcasts, social media, authoring over
a hundred academic papers, several
books and a clinical practice. He is
popular in conservative circles for his
criticisms of government, identity
politics and wokeness.
Prior to 2018 Peterson had no prior
disciplinary punishments or restric
tions from the College of
Psychologists (CPO) but was eventu
ally ordered to undergo social media
communication coaching, following
concerns about his public comments.
He denied any wrongdoings and filed
for judicial review. Lost the case and
on appeal also lost, and was ordered
to pay costs of his own training. The
court noted failure to comply could
result in his loss of license. He plans
to put his personal involvement in a
live podcast of his “training”.
The following is from a live inter
view in August: “Wokeness is threat
ening you guys down in the United
States, but we are further down the
road because we are run by the poster
boy for political correctness himself,
which is so amazing since his father’s
(Pierre Trudeau) contribution to
Canadian posterity was the introduc
tion of the Canadian Charter of Rights
and Freedoms, which hypothetically
guaranteed Canadians’ right to free
speech but has no teeth. To begin with
See TRAVIS PITTMAN page 22
The loss of local news is a crisis for democracy
A report from Northwestern
University’s Medill School puts it
bluntly: The loss of local journalism
that we’re seeing in the United States
is “a crisis for our democracy and our
society.” I couldn’t agree more.
We rely on free and vigorous news
media for the effective functioning of
our democracy, at all levels of gov
ernment. An informed citizenry is an
empowered citizenry.
When we lose news coverage, we
lose oversight of our public officials.
We need the press to be constantly
looking in every nook and cranny
where our politicians are working.
America’s founders recognized this,
enshrining freedom of the press in the
First Amendment.
Early American newspapers, of
course, were often partisan and
aligned with political factions, but
they played a crucial role in creating
an identity for the new nation. The
Lee
HAMILTON
PROFESSOR
Indiana University
Center on
Representative
Government
French political philosopher Alexis
de Tocqueville, a keen observer of the
young American republic, wrote that
its newspapers were “the power
which impels the circulation of
political life.”
We still rely on news media to
understand the workings of govern
ment. Newspapers, especially, play a
key role in civic education and com
munity engagement, which are essen
tial to good governance. While serv
ing in Congress, I learned that visit
ing a local newspaper office was a
great way to learn what constituents
were thinking.
But trends in business and technol
ogy have devastated local news. With
the rise of the internet, Americans
increasingly got their news online;
many concluded they didn’t need to
read the local paper. Newspaper reve
nue declined precipitously.
Closings and mergers followed.
The United States has lost more than
a quarter of its newspapers since
2005, according to the Medill School.
Most of the newspapers that have shut
down were weeklies serving small
towns and rural communities. That’s
been the trend here in Indiana, where
a third of all weeklies disappeared in a
recent 15-year period. Readership of
the state’s newspapers shrank by half.
More than one in five Americans
now live in what scholars refer to as
news deserts, communities that lack
See LEE HAMILTON page 22
in Georgia: who is most responsible?
Illegal immigration
Readers of all descriptions need to
know that there is an ignorant attitude
and potentially dangerous talking
point on illegal immigration circulat
ing under the GOP-niled Gold Dome
and in the Establishment political
class. Some elected officials and
trusted “conservative” commentators
are telling all who will listen that the
“don’t worry, it’s not an invasion”
invasion at our southern border is “a
federal problem.”
Looking back to last legislative
ession, it is educational to know that
multiple bills were passed in the state
Senate that would rewar d and encour
age illegal aliens in Georgia.
It is equally important to remember
that Georgia is home to more illegals
than green card holders and more
than Arizona.
When pressed by voters who find
the courage to broach the topic with
their own elected public servants,
many state legislators can be heard
responding “there is nothing we can
do about illegal immigration on the
W : * -- -
D.A.
* K- ,
KING
4 i
PRESIDENT
The Dustin
L 1
Inman Society
1 J
404-316-6712
state or local level.” This bizarre non
sense should be firmly challenged by
voters.
To speed that agenda along, while
the General Assembly is in session in
the coming months there will be spe
cific examples in this space of how
treacherous and preposterous this “it’s
not our job” attitude really is. As
usual, names will be named.
For now, consider the reality that at
least one Georgia politician has
clearly acknowledged he has the
power to address the matter. We
should remember all the way back to
2018 when Gov. Kemp was candidate
Kemp. Rrecall his campaign ads that
led with his solemn promise on what
he would do about the crime problem
generated by illegal aliens. Kemp
promised to go after what he referred
to then as “criminal illegals” and to
create a public database of that gr oup
in Georgia. He pledged to end sanctu
ary city policies and to work to pass
state legislation that would speed up
the system that puts illegal aliens into
the federal deportation system.
Here are some of Brian Kemp’s
exact words from five years ago in
describing the promised “Kemp
Track and Deport Plan.”:
“As governor conservative busi
nessman Brian Kemp will create a
comprehensive database to track
criminal aliens in Georgia. He will
also update Georgia law to streamline
deportations from our jails and
prisons.”
Brian Kemp’s criminal alien data
base summary:
- Aggregates data from state, local
and federal law enforcement and
other criminal justice agencies.
See D.A. KING page 23