The next time your hear some Republican proselytizing about the glories of our free market system, ask why a business that makes $50 million a year in profit has to fret about its evident demise. Ask why the company that just bought it is looking to unload it ASAP. Ask why the only fix being proposed is cutting staff.
I'm speaking, at this moment, about the troubles plaguing The Philadelphia Inquirer, but newspapers nationwide have the same problems. That is, they're making money, in many cases at a margin that would be the envy of many businesses, and no one apart from a few mouth-breathing Fox News watchers seems to dislike their product.
The free market evangelist will likely spout a few talking points about newspapers not being a growth stock, and with sufficient prodding, will go on to praise the suits who get their arms folded pictures on the cover of rags like Forbes merely for laying people off.
I read somewhere, yesterday, that there's only four ways to improve a newspaper: better reporting, better writing, better editing, and better pictures.
So here's my point: if an industry that consistently makes money, employs people, and produces an arguably worthwhile product is in trouble, then what's so great about our financial system?
I'm not arguing for communism or any other form of centrally controlled system. But I do think that capitalism belongs in the "least bad that we've come up with so far" category.
As a stopgap measure, I propose that the wealthier of you buy newspaper companies and take the stock out of the public market.
1 comment:
This guy seems to have listened to me, sort of. He seems to be getting too much ink for cutting papers and their staffs, but at least he has one part right:
"He said he would never dream of taking the company public because having Wall Street dictate to him 'would drive me nuts.'"
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