Tel-Chai Nation: Magazines drop in sales, and there's a potential reason why

I remembered seeing this news clip from Neal Boortz last month, and thought it might make a good subject even for now:

No ... it's not news about terrorists or the economy or politics. It's news about news. News about news magazines. News magazines such as Time and Newsweek are experiencing _[underscore indicates minus*]. Newsweek's newsstand sales are down 14%. In the meantime, Celebrity magazines are experiencing what the Audit Bureau of Circulation refers to as "Sparkling circulation increases." The American people are more interested in what is going on with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie then they are what is happening in World War IV, the war on Islamic terrorism.

Now, say "dumb masses" three times, real fast.

Wait! I just found this in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's "Vent." "I'll worry about fighting the Iraqi insurgents when they attack Atlanta. Until that time, why is it our responsibility to protect, defend, and develop the infrastructure of Iraq?"

Once again.... "dumb masses" three more times. Faster.

Now there's some interesting points to be made about this. On the one hand, he's right, the MSM is trying to dumb down the picture about the public's interest in the war in Iraq, making it sound as if they're more interested in tabloid/celebrity news than in really serious issues. On the other hand, while that subject isn't mentioned here, it could very easily be that the public is losing interest in Newsweek for one, due to the discovery that they faked a story on Guantanamo Bay jailers supposedly flushing a Koran down the toilet when interrogating terrorist prisoners, as Front Page Magazine and other bloggers found out a few months ago, and which Reuters was decent enough to report about.

In other words, the public is interested in the war, but not in magazines like Newsweek.

* I extended the hypertext link from how it was actually formatted on Boortz's own site to help make the link clearer.

Labels: communications