I had this great idea for a column that would have illustrated some of the economic and technological challenges to the newspaper business that play into the market perceptions that have led to the current situation in which the company that owns my newspaper finds itself.
Basically, I was going to write about the dilemmas that face even me, a loyal newspaper guy, as I face Christmas shopping with little time and money, and the convenience of e-commerce right at my fingertips.
I would have included several examples from this past weekend of shopping — first at the fine establishments of our local retailers (that is to say, our advertisers), then on the Web (sometimes the Web sites of those very same retail companies that have stores here, sometimes not). I was inspired when, after caving in and buying a couple of things on-line — one of them something completely unavailable locally, the other something that just wasn’t in stock at the stores I had visited in search of it — I said to my wife, "Well, we just took food out of our own mouths by failing to do business with local merchants."
She said, "But those things weren’t available locally." I said that if it had not been for the Internet, we would have waited while a local merchant back-ordered the second item, and on the first — the specially item never available locally — we would have come up with some other gift idea.
Anyway, I was pitching this column idea this morning to my crew, and getting enthusiastic about the possibilities, when it suddenly hit me: I can’t do this column now; it would mean telling the world what I’m getting certain people for Christmas. Sure, I could be vague the way I’ve been in this post, but not being specific about the gifts, right down to brand and model number, would take the life out of the thing — and not answer some obvious questions, such as, "What was it you couldn’t get here, and why?"
It would be sort of like a Tom Clancy novel without detailed descriptions of the weapon systems — what’s the point?
Oh, by the way, I should note that the best bargain I got all weekend was bought from a local merchant, and was specifically advertised in The State. So there.
Related Posts
The print media is slowly succumbing to two equal problems: the internet and bias. The New York Times, LA Times, and journalists with an agenta have made a mockery of the newspaper business. The USA Today recently doctored a photo to make Condi Rice look like a demon and put it on thier website. The NY Times has written article after article kissing up to Air America, but won’t even review the books of Bill O’Reilly. People don’t want to buy something that comes off as radically slanted to a point of view opposite of thiers, not when it is supposed to be news. I cancelled my Newsweek subscription a couple of years ago for that very reason.
You are right about the internet though. The new media is chipping away at the profits of print papers and magazines. That probably won’t change.
Brad, with so many online companies offering free shipping and NOT charging sales tax, I would not want to be a brick and mortar retailer. As for the classifieds, the ads that individuals put in for cars, pets, equipment, etc are valuable, but the classifieds run by most retailers are pathetic. How about the auto companies that advertise “Lowest prices of the year” or ” Buy this car for $289 a month” ? Talk about useless information. Then you have the local retailers with “Bring this coupon in for 10% off any item”. They neglect to inform you that they have marked items at full retail list. So, for me, the classifieds are for the most part killing a lot of good trees. But, paper companies like that. If Ebay keeps growing, and I see where the car dealers are now selling even the brand new models on it, newspaper classifieds are going to be an endangered species. Just today, in a related item, Anheuser announced a shift of ads from traditional venues to internet. It’s happening.
Yours is a universal lament. We complain about high gas prices as we climb into our SUVs; we bemoan the death of downtown and small merchants offering personal service as we drive our SUV to Walmart; we worry about our neighbors losing jobs as we fill the back of the SUV up with cheap t-shirts made in China and bought at Walmart.
I only mail order items which are not offered for sale in Columbia, or are sold only by big chains. When possible, I always try to use local merchants, and buy from local craftsmen. If I cannot do that, I at least try to buy Made in USA, and not from businesses employing immigrant labor.
The State paper is not a local business.
First, The State newspaper is as local a business as you can possibly find. Its entire reason for being is local; it is published by local people who work their behinds off to serve the community they care deeply about. Knight Ridder is NOT a local company, and the main involvement it has with the local people who run The State is to squeeze us for more money. Apart from the effect it has on my annual budget — which is down to nothing but salaries, office supplies and a few other sundries — Knight Ridder has nothing to do with the work that I do every day, as a local person of profound commitment to the community in which I work and the state in which I was born. And to state otherwise is not only to betray abysmal ignorance, but to state a vicious canard.
And Nathan, the Internet and the growth in perception of bias are in a sense the same thing. Because of the Internet, people can immerse themselves in information sources that are completely skewed in a way that reinforces their world view. Therefore, they are more convinced than ever that anything they hear from any other source — whether it is slanted against their point or view or merely neutral — is "biased." It’s sort of like when I watch Braves games on TBS, and get used to announcers who say "we" when referring to the team, and pronounce things that happen on the field as good or bad depending on how they affect my team’s fortunes. That skews my perception to the point that when some other network covers a Braves game, I get the overpowering feeling that they are "biased" against Atlanta, simply because they don’t care which side wins.
Are there tendencies in certain directions on certain issues on the part of most reporters and editors in this country? You betcha. Try as they do to be evenhanded (and they’re trying like crazy), it’s impossible to hide the fact that most journalists simply do not see opposition to abortion as being a position that a normal, thinking human being could hold. Why do I notice this? Because I’m a normal, thinking human being who does hold the position they can’t imagine. People who agree with their world view are incapable of seeing the flaws in the presentation; they think it’s perfectly balanced — perhaps a little TOO balanced, as they see it.
Similarly, since the early days of the war in Iraq — when folks imbedded with the troops were able to cover a clear, conventional military success — the coverage has been unrelentingly negative. Why? Partly because journalists simply look for what’s wrong — the fatal wreck is news; 100,000 cars driving down the road safely is not. But there is also the problem that journalists grew up on the "wrongness" of the Vietnam War, and in their simplistic approaches completely lacking in historical perspective, they’re covering the last war, trying to outdo each other in being "the first" to uncover fresh evidence of this whole thing having been wrong from the beginning. In the process of doing this, they both form public opinion, and then ride the wave they have helped create, seeing themselves as documenting the "legitimate," rising tide of war opposition.
It’s an insidious thing, and enormously harmful to this country. But is it part of some insidious plot to skew public opinion? No. It’s just intellectual laziness.
But I’ll tell you this — if the loudest critics of "bias" in the press were doing our job, it really would be biased, and across the board. What you see now is flaws in a system run by people who are truly committed to fairness, but are merely human. Most of the biggest critics (on the right and the left, and there are plenty of both) are people who make no pretense to neutrality. I’d hate to see the kinds of newspapers they would put out.
Don’t worry. I think that Lee posts to see himself post. I think that he gets his “facts and figures” from the Bush administration because from what I have gathered trying to verify his statements, is that he is full of it.
Because of the Internet, readers can research the rest of the story that is omitted every day by production line infotainment conglomerates. Writers like James Fallows, who used to be able to be able to create believable stories that only the personally experienced readers could dissect as fiction, now can be exposed by the blunt facts available to everyone.
When a pundit repeats the falsehoods like “there were no WMD in Iraq”, that “30,000 children are killed each year by handguns”, or that “47,000,000 Americans are without healthcare”, literate people can look up the facts. The media pundits lose credibility every time they are caught lying.
On a local level, the Internet is just an addition to newsletters for people with deep understanding of issues, who are seldom given space by local newspaper, radio and television.
Lee, you give yourself a lot of credit. Most of the numbers and figures that you use are misrepresented.
For example, you used a figure from the US Census saying that there are 10mm illegals in the US. That figure actually refer to according to the cencus is foriegn born citizens in the US. That does not mean illegal alien. The figure according to the Department of Homeland Security estimates 7mm illegals.
Just wanted to point this out to you, as you are not the only one that knows how to use the internet. It helps when we all remain honest and refrain from distorting facts and figures.
Preston, your spin sounds like a deliberate attempt to mislead, but we don’t know if you even read the Census estimates of illegal immigrants, because you provided no references. Of course, more detailed estimates place the number even higher, at 20,000,000. I have found that people who support illegal immigration don’t care what the numbers are.
My point regarding local tax and school issues is that we should determine if we would really have any construction needs it we removed the illegals.
Census Bureau reports welfare use by household based on the nativity of the household head. See for example, Figures 20-1, 20-2 and 21-3 in ?Profile of the Foreign-Born Population: 2000.? P23-206, U.S. Census Bureau, December 2001.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p23-206.pdf.
Lauding the informative virtues of the Internet reminds of Mark Twain’s saying that “A lie travels halfway around the world before truth has got its boots on.” It needs to be handled with care.
Lee, I don’t think I know of anyone who “supports illegal immigration.” What people do is disagree about what to do about illegal immigration. Some people get really worked up about it and demand that the problem be solved — something easier said than done. Others look at the role illegal immigrants play in our economy — the demand for their labor exceeding the supply of foreign workers that the law would allow — and wonder if there’s something wrong with the laws.
I haven’t taken a position on the issue, because I really don’t know what the solution is. I am struck by an irony, though — the people who are most adamant about stopping illegal immigration, whatever it takes, tend to be folks who otherwise believe in letting the market dictate what happens between business and labor, rather than having the government strongly intervene with regulation or enforcement of stringent rules.
Or am I wrong about that? Are the folks who are worked up about immigration NOT people who believe in, say, right-to-work laws and such? Maybe they aren’t; I haven’t spent enough time following all these arguments to be entirely sure.
The free market only includes legal transactions. Hiring illegal aliens is an attempt to gain a market advantage by breaking laws, from minimum wages, to tax evasion.
Anyone who knowingly hires questionable imimgrants supports illegal immigration. Anyone who buys goods and services they know to be produced by criminal immigrant labor also supports such criminal activity.
There are a few groups who openly support illegal immigration, such as La Raza. Most of the supporters are silent, hoping to benefit financially or politically by doing nothing to stop the crime wave of immigration.
If someone cannot tell the difference between US Census data, studies by Bear Stearns, and internet rumors posted by Al Franken, they probably are not capable of being informed by any source.
Lee, 1. Your link did not work. 2. The figures that you refer to are 10mm foreign born. Foreign Born does not mean illegal alien. That is my point, and again you fail to directly address it. Is that because I am right? Let me know if I am wrong. Thanks.
Preston, if your only knowledge of the subject is a quick glance at links supplied to you by others, all you can do is react to their opinions, rather than discuss the subject.
Lee, I researched the US Census site and found your 10mm figure, but it referred to Foreign born and not illegals. I tried to use your link to verify whether you had been mistaken, but it didn’t work.
Because I cannot verify your claim, I have made the claim that you are misrepresenting numbers in your arguments. I asked you a very direct question several times, which you have refused to answer. AM I WRONG ABOUT THE NUMBERS THAT YOU POSTED? (Concerning the US cencus data) THAT IS A DIRECT QUESTION THAT YOU HAVE YET TO ANSWER. If I am wrong, please correct me. Let me even simplify–ARE FOREIGN BORN AND ILLIGAL ALIEN THE SAME THING ACCORDING TO THE US CENSUS DATA?
My main concern is pointing out untruths that are posted on this blog. If your claims cannot be verified, how can your opinion be valued? (I realize that this is going to prompt you to question what I have said, only I am not savvy enough to hook up a link, but I will try for the future. In the meantime, an answer to my questions would be great.)
I eagerly await your response.
Thanks in advance,
Preston
Yes, you are wrong, but I don’t think you care about solving the immigration problem.
If your web browser is blocking the pop up data dialog, try this for another source citing 20,000,000 illegal immigrants:
http://www.bearstearns.com/bear/bsportal/Info.do?left=Asset Management
click the link to PDF file:
The Underground Labor Force is Rising to the Surface
By Robert Justich and Betty Ng, CFA
January 3, 2005
* The illegal alien population of the U.S. is about 20 million – roughly the population of New York State.
* The report asserts that there are between 12 and 15 million jobs in the U.S. currently held by illegal aliens, or about 8 percent of the work force.
* Moreover, between 4 and 6 million jobs have shifted to the underground economy since 1990. These are not “jobs Americans won’t do, but rather jobs Americans used to do.“
* “On the revenue side, the United States may be foregoing $35 billion a year in income tax collections because of the number of jobs that are now off the books.”
* “We estimate that approximately 5 million illegal workers are collecting wages on a cash basis and are avoiding income taxes.”
* “The United States is simply hooked on cheap, illegal workers and deferring the costs of providing public services to these quasi-Americans” conclude Justich and Ng.
I travel a lot: India, Central Asia, Europe, Africa, and other, as a director of a relief organization. When people are hungry, they are going to move where they can find a better life. Just building fences (I used to live 10 miles from the East German border, and I would hate to see our border to Mexico look like that) is not the answer — the pressure cooker is going to burst at some point. I do buy stuff made in other countries, and I do it gladly. I don’t know what the answer is on illegal immigration, but I’m glad that some of us are erring on the side of compassion. I do know that the McDonalds I was at the other night could have used some hard-working illegal immigrants — the service was pathetic. Sorry for appealing to emotional arguments, if that is what they are, but I really would like to see some compassionate conservatism for a change, with the emphasis upon the adjective.
East Germany had a fence to keep people from leaving – not analogous to America.
India just announced plans to round up and deport 20,000,000 illegal aliens, and they have a lot more borders that the US does.
Stopping illegal immigration is not that difficult. The problem resides in Americans who
* profit from illegal labor
* don’t have the backbone to criticize anything, especially non-white foreigners
* hate America and actually favor anything which degrades the Western European culture that made America great.
It’s a waste of time to discuss solutions to social problems with those people who don’t want a solution.
Herb, Do we have a nation if we don’t have borders? Also, most of the bleeding hearts who are ambivalent about the continuing flood of immigrants into our nation live comfortably away from them. I too travel internationally and I have a very good pal in England. He gave me a tour of neighborhoods in England where the immigrants pool together and buy up a few houses in a well developed posh neighborhood where the best schools function. They will buy a two story and pack it with ten Paki families. This can happen here in Spring Valley, Irmo, Dutch Fork, you name it. As long as we keep encouraging and rewarding people who break the law, this is what we will get.
As a Christian, I believe we have an obligation to help the poor worldwide, even though we know we will always have the poor, but we don’t have the obligation to move them all into this nation. I like what Jay Leno said, 40% of Mexicans would move into America today if they could, the other 60% are already here.
Dave, I agree with you. We certainly don’t have an obligation to move everybody into this nation. I don’t support illegal immigration, and like Brad Warthen, I don’t know what the answer really is. I do know if I were in their shoes, I would do the same thing they are doing. I work with internationals as much as I can, and so does my son, who plays (or did play) soccer a lot with a few of the Mexicans you are referring to. The government is going to do what the government has to do. I guess what I would like to see is less animosity being built up by the language we use in discourse — labeling each other and calling other people “hopeless.” Some may say that I am totally off the point, and this has nothing to do with government policy, but I think the way we relate to people and engage in discourse does eventually have quite an effect on government policy.
Western European culture is superior? Does that include fascism?
Emotional people like Herb feel good about “erring on the side of compassion” as long as the illegal immigrants are being paid for by someone else’s tax dollars, burlarizing someone else’s home, stealing someone else’s car, and raping or killing someone else’s family members.
Many of these immigrants are criminals, who come here for bigger loot and less punishment. A drunk Mexican from South Carolina with a fake driver’s license and Social Security card killed a UNC student in a head-on collision outside Charlotte two weeks ago. He had 5 arrests and had been deported twice already.
Why didn’t liberal compassion convert him from a bum into a model citizen? What is the liberal solution for keeping creeps like him out of America?
“Someone else’s tax dollars?” Do you have reason to believe Herb doesn’t pay taxes?
I have never seen a liberal advocating more taxes for themselves, always for someone else. I am sure “Herb” pays some taxes, but a truly compassionate liberal would DONATE money to support their causes, instead of forcing other people to cough up their hard-earned wealth.
Now, Brad, tell us how a centrist would keep those criminal immigrants of America.
Excuse me. I didn’t know that illegal immigrants had a corner on being bums, practicing crime or engaging in drunk driving.
Thanks Brad — yes I do pay taxes. Though not much, because my income is low. I paid a whole lot more in Germany — everybody pays a whole lot more in Germany — but then I also had good, basic health coverage, and nursing home insurance for the future (which I won’t use, since I moved back here) for myself, my wife, and our four children. I didn’t realize how evil the system was that I was in — if I had only known how bad off I was . . . .
Actually Lee has a point. The German system is in bad need of reform, too. Human nature, including politicians seeking votes, tends to milk the system for all its worth. But human nature is a problem that all systems have to deal with. I don’t think we can just leave our system as it is.
As far as making donations, I think I do what I can. Including not only money, but myself and my time, and my emotions, which are important, by the way. Emotions and personal energy especially come into play, for example, when one helps send people and friends, including members of ones own family, to some unstable areas of the world in order to work for justice. It is all costly. But helping people is always costly.
No one claimed that removing all the illegal immigrants would solve all the vagrancy and crime problems, so forget that weak attempt at diversion.
Any meager donations liberals make to charity are also irrelevant to their demands for others to pay more taxes, and their tacit support for illegal immigration, in the form of refusing to recognize it as a problem.
Immigration enforcement would stop this crime problem:
Hispanics, 75% of whom are illegal, make up 8% of the population of the Charlotte, NC area. They comprise 25% of drunk driving arrests. – Charlotte Observer 12/07/2005
“Any donations liberals make to charity are also irrelevant . . .” Thanks, Lee. I appreciate the put-down. When your argument is exhausted, you resort to slurs.
Short of building a Gestapo type police force, I don’t know how you are going to stop illegal immigration. People who are hungry are going to go where there is food.