Media Watch

Waler needs to invent internet coupons, have TV listings, work in a crossword puzzle, and he'll be all set.

Ana Paulina asked, Who is Zippy and who is Grinch?

Grinch as I said before, is an articulate, intelligent (albeit liberal amongst a sea of conservatives) person who doesn't cry for the arrest of the past administration every third post in order to defend his point. He has also proven himself to be capable of defending his statements after only being asked once, thus he is an adversary worthy of debate. He also doesn't play here.

Zippy, aka bitter on the other hand is a tin-foil hat wearing, conspiracy theorist moonbat that post garbage like this in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings:

“…1 shooter 43 victims, I think not!!
This is a set up. I'm waiting for the military to describe him as a member of the oath keepers, too. If he survives he will be placed in solitary confinement and described as a suicidal fanatic. He will never see the light of day nor will the truth. The real shooters will never be revealed as they have already been released and returned to their special ops units…."

As far as their real identity, your guess is as good as mine.

Who is Zippy and who Grinch?

"...So it's not a free exchange of ideas..."

Try and focus Zippy, if I have to explain again, well.....never mind

How much do you think Grinch and I agree on?

Problem is you can't counter the fact that Obama is a socialist with "No he isn't because Cheney is a crook."

Grinch wouldn't, you on the other hand would quote Fulford.

"In other words Zippy, there is no tolerance for those that are stuck on stupid."

So, he censors his blog. So it's not a free exchange of ideas---only those he deems up to his class. No big deal...just pointing it out.

And I will continue to call for their arrest for as long as I breathe. I believe them to be guilty...so sue me!

Just cause you idealogues never drop the group-think long enough to consider the possibility, and don't care what they did...you are the ones that are stuck on stupid.

Laughing...

Do tell Ana?

All this time I thought their purpose was to wait under one of the bridges for a family of goats or a girl with a camera...

Trolls have a purpose, and that is a path of destruction.

Why, you ask. Do you really want to know why?

Grinch is an articulate, intelligent (albeit liberal amongst a sea of conservatives) person who doesn't cry for the arrest of the past administration every third post in order to defend his points. He has also proven himself to be capable of defending his statements after only being asked once, thus he is an adversary worthy of debate.

In other words Zippy, there is no tolerance for those that are stuck on stupid.

Give it a whirl if you think you can keep up with the rest of the class although I have to warn you, Swellfleet doesn't take prisoners.

"unless of course you're a blithering idiot and qualify under the Americans With No Abilities Act."

There you go...he has his own version of censoring!
Which is his right, but then don't call it free speech.

When you have to say even grinch was welcomed....well why shouldn't he be? Because he differs from p2?
See? My blog-My rules=Not freedom.

The Cape Cod times will have online comments again in the near future. I emailed the paper and they responded that the 10/31 online comment start date was postponed due to technical problems.

It would be nice to be able to comment on the article in the CC Times about the MA Fair Plan request for another rate hike.

Being able to comment online is important in debating the issues and notifying citizens of important meetings like the 12/15/09 hearing at the Division of Insurance on the Fair Plan Rate filing.

Please consider joining Paula from Citizens for Homeowner Insurance Reform and I on 12/15/09 in Boston on 12/15/09 to fight the rate hike requeset.

This reminds me of the Peak Oil graph.

CC Times shut down their forums because Greg (Blog 'O Matters) Bryant lacks the intestinal fortitude to run it.

Swell got booted so many times he started his own site where the First Amendment is the pretty much the only rule, unless of course you're a blithering idiot and qualify under the Americans With No Abilities Act.

Even Grinch was welcomed and for good reason.

bipr: Agreed. An "iron fist in a velvet glove" moderation philosophy works well under such circumstances.

Our own daily lost a lot of connection with readers when they let trolls shut down their forum.

No wonder the neo-comms are in a tirade..
The entire neo-comm media conglomerates are in free fall.
The self appointed blue bloods of news are bleeding out of viewership, readers, and collectively destroyed in ratings and subscriptions by right wing extremists!
Their diametrically opposed competition is skyrocketing.
Those conservatives have awakened and follow the hate filled speech of talk radio by the millions.
Those unwashed,GOP funded,tea partying, uneducated,astro turfing, backwood, nazi, guntoting,pro American, pro military, pro constitution, anti big government types must be stopped!

Please, Mr Obama, silence them before it's too late.
The government must protect its own.

Not to worry, a print media bailout is on the way..along with net neutrality..we'll silence those wascals!
Afterall,they aren't real..and those that listen and watch, are but the lunatic fringe.

Appears some serious ethnic cleansing is in order, given the millions of lunatics.
And,even after all the GOP funding behind them, they still despise the GOP as well..lunatics!!

possee

Sigh. It's an unstoppable trend to extinction. The information and news magazines are pulling every trick out of the hat to rosy the circulation numbers of their publications but they are inextricably headed down the newsprint path.

Can't see'm from my house so build'em!

Every one knows by now rules are for the loser peon unwashed masses not for the elite families. After all poor Joe only makes a few hundred grand peddling that wack job dictators oil.

The internet has changed many things for many people, as you point out.
It seems the changes relative to media are stark.
I can envision clay tablet sellers, back in the day, insisting that papyrus wasn't a big threat. :)

Yikes, did I get a shock when I opened the mailbox. Blech - Not only hard to read, but so cynical. How much does GateHouse donate to breast cancer research? What extraordinary awareness are they promoting? So this is supposed to make us feel warm and fuzzy?

Buzz, they could have if they were smart enough to use ink (red at 5%), but they printed the newspapers in pink newsprint rather than white for reasons which escape an old printer like myself. wb

Couldn't agree more Walter. Great cause... terrible execution. Couldn't even read the paper. Why couldn't they tint in ever so slightly?

I'm not only interested in what happened to Bill Delahunt on the health care issue, I want to know if he is still buying oil from Hugo Chavez. As for an ambassadorship, it probably will be in Venezuela.

Where was Bill Delahunt?

During the recent Congressional recess, our Congressman, Bill Delahunt,
was no where to be found. He opted out of holding Town Hall Meetings
across the Cape or the rest of this Congressional District. Certainly health care reform, and other vital issues were on the minds of many constituents. Why in the world would he choose to avoid the people he represents?

Possibly he’s tired of the job. There was a report published in the Boston Herald
that he is seeking an Ambassadorship. Whatever! The bottom line is that he should be challenged in this election cycle, and I hope Jeff Perry of Sandwich
will step forward and run for Congress. Many say he could win.

I encouraging him to do so.

Even my father at age 82 even though he is not Computer savvy understands that online papers and on line "print" is the way things are going,, Tell Rupert he needs to either get with the 21st Century or get out of the business. Yesterdays news isn't selling anymore.

Very simple, if their 'web-paper' is bundled with some sort of service you would already like to have like direcTV or even showtime or HBO, it will succeed. There are 1000's of brands out there that could be used to piggyback the small cost of a monthly subscription.

Just like DirecTV made their 'basic' package more attractive by adding XM Radio(existing content), the paper will make a deal to be added on to some entertainment package as just another channel, except it is access to a paper that carries news about your local.

The % of people that will pay for what they perceive that can get for free a click or 3 away is pretty low and falling every day.

My prediction is that Murdoch will do it kinda successfully, and others will follow doing it a lot better having learned form his mistakes.

my 2 cents

Yea, what dingbat said.

Mooner17 - you make a good point, but the fact is that newspapers derived most of their income not long ago from advertising and that income source has gone away. So, a new busiess model is needed, and believe me, somebody will come up with one. In the meantime, charging for online content (I believe) will only work of you are producing a real good quality product, with I feel neither the Globe or the Cape Cod Times does. And they're not alone. Now I would gladly pay for the Wall Street Journal or New Yorker magazine, but they a few notches above.

My point is that I feel the law of diminishing returns will come into play. Charging for online content for the Globe and Cape Cod Times will not enhance earnings -- it'll simply drive customers away.

Why shouldn't newspaper charge for online content? What other successful business do you know of that gives away its content for free?

No offense, but at least they're a news site. I come on here and I'm entertained from time to time, but this site does not really provide news. It links to other real news sites and occasionally has something of its own (usually an editorial, column or other opinion piece).

I'll probably pay for the Boston Globe and Cape Cod Times content online just to keep up with what's going on, but I'll have to see the cost first.

Great idea, Boston Globe. Get prepared to have NO readers, of which I will be one.

I think "FAIL Blog" has already reserved a space for Rupert.

http://failblog.org/

Thats what they think

Can anybody make a financial "go" of a print newspaper at this point? How low would the price on either publication need to be to give them a chance of survival?

The sale price will probably be a fraction of the purchase price.

And to think, the CEO of the Times Co. will probably be rewarded handsomely with a big bonus.

LOL - I had never really considered Bruce Bennett a "Cape Cod man" before. So that's where the former Mr. Worcester landed.

The codder sucks. The banner is a much better newspaper. It actually has NEWS in it, not some feel good sappy story about some old fart that grows the largest tomatoes. Too bad Gatehouse took over the Banner. But who didn't see that coming from the previous owner. "Show me the money!!"

People at the Banner must be geting nervous at this point. Almost everything in it is repeated word for word in the Cape Codder, so it would seem likely that would be where the next cuts would come from. I think the Cape Codder is a good paper, especially since they operate with a skeleton staff. As far as it being a gipper thing, a little then maybe, but consolidation took off for the stratoshpere in the 90s.

Was Mass Media Consolidation a phenomenon of Reagan-era origin? I like to blame stuff like this on the Gipper. A poster I spent a week on last year as a benefit for the WOMR Third Annual Night of Fleischer Animation got butchered by the not-giving-a-sh*t new staff at the Banner... since they had cut my name off in the butchering, they typed it in~ misspelled, relegating what remained of the poster to the ever-growing Google back alley devoted to the nonexistent 'Ned Sontag'.
When I called for a correction I was told, 'take that up with WOMR'. Hamilton Kahn had been canned just the week before, unbeknownst to me... he would've gotten the job done right. Hope nobody bails out Gatehouse and thus delays the picking up of the pieces. Hey and can we please ban the aptly eponymous 'lottabaloney' for using Walter's bandwidth to spread panic about the health of the very 'paper' upon which he posts? Walter's already said last week that revenue is well up.

Shecky is correct - Since hyper-local is the only media idea with legs, GateHouse is of course going hyper-regional instead.