what's so weird about this decline is that the msm could slow it merely by being less leftist. if they did away with their leftist bds bias and became even-handed in their reporting, then they would get a larger audience simply becauise all of us centrists and righties would partake of them once in a while.

case in pint: msnbc is the lowest rated cable news net. they routinely run un-scientific polls. and trhese are always slanted 3-to-1 left-to-right.

now we know that the nation is right now a 52-48 RIGHT-to-left nation, so the msnbc results mean that they can attract leftist viewers but not many right-of-center viewers. they get only 25% of the people on the right.

if they were not so biased their ratings could DOUBLE - and this would make them LOTS MORE MONEY.

yet still they do not so it.

WHY!?

they obviously put their propaganda efforst ahead of their SHAREHOLDERS profit interests.

their SHAREHOLDERS shouold be going nuts over this; it's an OUTRAGEOUS situation.

one that violates the spirit of objectivity in news-reporting and hurts msnbc's/nbc's/ge's profitability.

fix get more viewers because it is fair and balanced.

and i am NOT defining centrist or rightist or leftist in any ideoloogical way; i'm just using a "bell curve" implied from the make up of congress and the last several presidential elections. YUP: REMEMBER: CLINTON WAS NOMINATED AND ELECTED AS A NEW DEMOCRAT - A CENTRIST.

this sutation is self-correcting: the leftist rags/channels will go out of business.

the problem remains: as they go into death throes, they will get more desperate - like the rather/memogate stuff.

the dubai demagoguery and the IMMINENT?VERGING civil war are two other examples of UTTER BS sp[ewing from the leftist MSM as they lie and lie and lie and lie in an effort to BRAINWASh to public.

between the msm's nonstop assault of LIES, and bush's own failure to be conservative enough (on spending and immigration), things are pretty tough now for the prez.

but let's not bail out on him.

the alternative is too sickening. appallingly so.

The mainstream media has become (1) a mouthpiece for the American left; and (2) a round-the-clock foghorn for stories that really aren't national stories at all, like the poor girl who was murdered in Aruba. Yes, the story deserved to be reported but there has been nothing new of consequence in months even though I see entire shows (FOX is one of the worst) devoted entirely to her every night.

I hate to say it, but it's news when pretty, white, young women are murdered but it's not news when not-so-hot-looking, non-white women are murdered.

The media is in total denial and will be until The New York Times and the Washington Post are both in bankruptcy court.

Stingray:  a blog for salty Christians

It's a given that the daily newspapers lean left, but the reason for it is misunderstood. Consider the following set of facts about the business (and don't forget, newspapers ARE businesses):
1) there is a straight-line relationship between revenue and verifiable (paid) circulation. (What advertisers pay for an add is a multiple of how many doorsteps the paper falls on.),
2) about 95% of households in non-marginalized neighborhoods of cities subscribe,
3 about 50% of households in neighborhoods of the marginalized subscribe, ergo
4) If you wish to increase circulation (increase revenue, which, because expenses are fixed, falls straight to the bottom line) where do go to find new customers?
5) Therefore "stories" (Jesse Jackson speakes here, welfare proposed in Congress, etc.) are selected, not for news value, but as marketing devices.
CONCLUSION: This isn't liberal bias. This is PROFIT BIAS. It is an outmoded business model, perhaps, but its not the only U.S. industry that can't change its culture overnight (think GM, Ford, for instance).