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She does NOT say take the Iraq War off the front page. (And I don't know about you-all, but the Iraq War is mostly NOT on the front page of my local rag. It's mostly relegated to p. 3 or further back.) She says that newspaper circulation is down. And that makes newspapers a less useful market for advertising. And that is TRUE. Two of the things she advises are newspapers becoming more appealing to women age 25-54, and to minority women (Macy's customers), and emphasizing local news. And before you react to that, as her saying 'take the war off the front page' (which she didn't say), consider something she DOESN'T say (but which is a corollary of what she said), that, as conglomerates eat up the TV/radio venues, and cut back on LOCAL reporting staffs, the LOCAL basis of democracy (all democracy is local) is undercut. No one's watching the court house, local corrupt city councilpersons and developers, no one's reporting on the privatization of local parks, or the scandals in local elderly care, or digging deep into why the local hospital is closing, or why the city council is giving land and tax break to Walmart, or who or what is counting your votes, or where local jobs are going, or all the other LOCAL issues that are touchpoints between ordinary citizens and national policy.
Lack of in-depth coverage of local news is, in fact, a democracy issue. People see headlines written by war profiteering corporate news monopolies and fascists, that don't seem relevant. These headlines don't say, "Bush Cartel Still Robbing Your Pocketbook to Kill Iraqis for their Oil." They are dreary, dead headlines, and articles, that make blood for oil, and the mind-boggling costs of it all, seem inevitable, unstoppable, and not relevant to YOU. They might as well not write about it, and instead cover local scandals or local positive democracy efforts (if they would). Even the local garden clubs (are they gardening organically? are they helping to "green" America?), or the local Audubon Society and its annual bird count, or a local group doing an AIDs benefit, or local safety and emergency services issues. The bricks of democracy. These receive almost no coverage any more--and certainly not in-depth coverage--with NY and DC-based (or Hong Kong-based, or Dubai-based) global corporate predators owning and controlling all news and opinion in the traditional venues. So, if local newspapers would start filling this gap, much more seriously than they do--started covering what the majority of people are actually doing, in their community and political lives, and how local people see things, it would be revolutionary. Fuck DC! Democracy is LOCAL!
Secondly, something else she doesn't say--but which could be implied from the losses in the newsprint business--this deadly dull, evil, lying, deceitful "news" coverage (I should say, "news" manufacture) of national and international events, that creeps out like a disease from AP to all newsprint, is turning readers off, not because they are not interested in national and international news, but because they are increasingly aware that what they read is bunk. IF these newspapers told them something they needed to know--if they told the truth--newspapers would become hot items again. The remedy to declining newsprint is patently obvious. Do your job! Tell the truth! Expose corruption! Champion the people! The people of this country would shout with joy to see that headline: "Bush Cartel Still Robbing Your Pocketbook to Kill Iraqis." They would subscribe to your newspaper in droves, because they would know that they were being given something real--real journalism--in exchange for their money and their attention to your ads.
No, the Macy's P.R. lady doesn't say this, but you know it's true. And she implied it, in a way. She was saying that people don't find value in newspapers. Many feel there is no reason to read them. Just the same old crap there. More lies. And you can't even find out why your downtown is dying and Wal-Mart is coming in, or, why, suddenly, there is no more garbage collection at your local park down the street, or why, a few months after that, its trees are being felled and the grass ripped up for a new real estate development.
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