FOLLOWING on from Friday's post and the subject of hitting the newspaper owners where it hurts when their editors allow the publication of such anti-BNP drivel as that appeared in the Wiltshire Gazette and Herald last week, I received an interesting idea from my colleague John Ryde in Leicester.
He wrote:
"For some time I have had the idea that our lady members could attack those newspapers who are "anti" by complaining directly to the editors about adverts for massage parlours, personal services and sex chat lines.
The removal of these would reduce their revenue, maybe not a lot, but as the supermarket says "every little helps".
It may only be a pinprick to some, but for others it could be the straw that breaks the camels back.
Complaints too, to the major advertisers within the paper, could put extra pressure on the editors to be a little fairer in their coverage of the BNP.
To those ladies with the connections to the WI, there is the possibility of lobbying a few more ladies there to help any campaign.
It's just a thought."
John is right to point out the importance of advertisers. On Radio 4's Today programme this morning it was saying that newspaper advertising is currently at an all time low and that newspaper proprietors are really feeling the pinch.
Now on to another topic and a depressing one for me.
I have received a number emails and telephone calls saying that postings from my blog are appearing on some of the cranky neo-nutzi websites in America. In the past I have just dismissed this as "not important" and told those who have been in contact that there is nothing I can do to stop this as whoever is doing it, is just stealing the postings from this website.
However, it now transpires that some people think that I am actually posting them myself on these websites, and that is something that I find very disturbing. Nick Griffin even called me last week to find out what the score was as he had received a number of complaints as well.
Anyone who knows me, and my track record within nationalist politics, would know that this would never be the case. Over the past 30 odd years I have received many more death threats from the nutzis brigade than I have from the 'Red Front'. They don't like me because they accuse me of watering down policy. I'm regarded by them as a 'liberal' for rejecting all their hardline nonsense out of hand and because I have always pushed for a brand of nationalism that is more publicly acceptable.
I certainly wouldn't want to be associated with any cranks, especially American ones, and wouldn't want my offerings on this site, my personal weblog, to appear anywhere else other than here.
I hope this sets the record straight.
Monday, 14 July 2008
Setting the record straight
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Time magazine has an article regarding US newspapers, entitled The Nightly News, Not-For-Profit
... newspapers are in a "time to panic" spot. The business model is collapsing, ad dollars are disappearing, newsprint prices are at a 12-year high and the Internet is just giving news away for free.
... Enter Pro Publica, a non-profit news organization devoted solely to investigative journalism and funded to the tune of $10 million a year by California-based philanthropists Herb and Marion Sandler. With a staff of 18 journalists ...
... The group's purpose ... is to produce those increasingly rare stories that possess "moral force," according to editor-in-chief, Paul Steiger ... "We're going to try to do stories such that, by shining a light on an abuse of power, we'll give the public the information it needs to effect change,"
... last year daily newspapers experienced the largest decrease in their workforce in three decades. In the same year, The Newspaper Association of America reports that newspapers experienced their most severe decline in ad revenues in more that half a century. Steiger, who has been in the business for 42 years, puts it starkly. "What's going on in the news business is a lot like what's happening with music," he says: free distribution of content over the Internet has created "a total collapse of the business model."
For Pro Publica, one answer to the problem is to give news away for free ... But with most of Pro Publica's assets the product of the Sandlers' largesse, it leaves the group open to speculation ... that the Sandlers political views could influence coverage: the couple have donated heavily to the Democratic Party and the progressive activism group MoveOn.org.
... As Duke University economist James T. Hamilton puts it, "Newspapers used to be owned by people who were willing to trade off profits for the notion that they were doing the right thing." And with profits disappearing, doing the right thing is becoming increasingly important. ...
Is something similar likely to happen in the UK? Could the UAF/TUC go into the newspaper business?
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