Opinion: Why they hate us, part MMCCII

While three of the largest newspapers in the country had rises in their circulation figures, the LA Times had the largest drop both in absolute numbers and in percentage drop.

And then there are the editorials, not quite as knee-jerk leftist as a couple of years ago, but still pretty silly. And the op-ed page: a repository of high-minded ignorance from the likes of Rosa Brooks and Erin Aubry Kaplan and other worthies with little to say, poor writing skills, little information to reveal, few analytic talents, but a column to file each week. Even the ineffable Robert Scheer was worth more space than this crew.

I find it interesting that papers with a reputation for being conservative, the Wall Street Journal, New York Post actually have increases in growth while the liberal papers, the NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post and Minneapolis Star Tribune are all down.

Five straight years of declining circulation, five straight years of pedophile priest stories, five straight years of Cardinal-bashing, five straight years of burgeoning Catholic regional growth, and still none of the local fishwraps are getting a clue about how sustained Catholic-bashing equals sustained drops in circulation. Good luck with Sam at the joystick!

Put aside the long line of Times’ scandals—whether the Staples Center special, Michael Hiltzik’s sock-puppetry, the leasing of the Sunday opinion section to the editor’s girlfriend’s boss or the latest, Armeniagate--the real laugher is the paper’s sense of importance, its preening about its role even as it became obvious to all that it was the Norma Desmond of Los Angeles media. Patterico is the real expert here, and even an hour spent rummaging through his archives will confirm the very harsh truth: The Times is an awful newspaper that doesn’t have a clue about how awful it is or how it happened.

I hate the bias of Big Media in general and the L.A. Times in particular, but I don’t think it’s that bias that is driving these numbers. Rather, it’s the transformation of how people get their news, due to the revolution of the Web. However, the two issues are not entirely unrelated. With the Internet comes access to a tremendous diversity of information sources—many far more accurate in their specific niches than the newspapers. More and more people are taking note, and faith in the news media, I think, is cratering as quickly as the circulation numbers, as Big Media’s bias is increasingly put on display.

People Hate the L.A. Times And circulation continues to crash.

Not only did L.A. Times circulation take another hit today — down more than four percent — but Editor & Publisher named N. Christian Anderson III of the Orange County Register its Publisher of the Year. That even though the Register’s circulation slipped 5% daily and 7% Sunday.

...the latter I reminded the biased reporter asking questions about the LA Times circulation numbers last week, and how the LAT has argely become irrelevant in a city where half the people are functionally illiterate. Their op-ed pages advocate a kamikaze mission for the LAT: support policy which effectively eliminates engish-speakers.