Here in Dover, NH, along with my complimentary breakfast of cold cereal, dry bagels and bad coffee, I received a free copy of today’s Foster’s Daily Democrat. The only opinion piece on their opinion page is by Jonah Goldberg. It accuses the president of lying about his health care bill. There’s something wrong with that. We need more liberals in syndication, for starters. I guarantee you that I can do a better job than David Brooks or Jonah Goldberg.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Liberals don’t stick with the approved narrative. That’s why there’re so few of them in syndication. Local newspapers are first-of-all businesses that sell advertising to corporations and local small businesses, few of whom are interested in liberal points of view.
It isn’t about skill or ability to write or ability to do political analysis. Jonah Goldberg is a case in point; he got his break because his momma took down Bill Clinton. Then he got the wingnut welfare slot on a major paper. There is no “liberal welfare” slot on any of the Wall Street media.
And the media knows that over the past 20 years they have lost almost all of their liberal readers–and they don’t care. Subscriptions don’t pay the bills; advertising does.
Basically this. The liberal readers have migrated to New Media.
It isn’t even the newspapers that are the primary gatekeepers. It’s the syndicators themselves.
I took a crack at syndication in the daily newspaper market in the middle part of the last decade. Working Assets was running (and syndicating) daily columns of mine, AlterNet was placing a lot of my work in weekly papers around the country, and as a result of that visibility I was already self-syndicating to a couple dozen dailies, many of them in unlikely places like Colorado Springs. I also had the backing of several prominent columnists who were already syndicated. Moreover, it was just as the liberal backlash against Bush was hitting the mainstream. I was about as well-positioned to break into the game as any middle-aged white guy could be in a business saturated with middle-aged white guys. And we could not get a nibble from the syndicators. Not one.
Granted, it goes back to the newspapers and readers – the syndicators were responding to the conventional wisdom of an industry that had yet to react meaningfully to new media. But here I am, seven years later, like Boo struggling to pay my bills, while the Intertubez teem with talented amateurs and hacks like Goldberg make millions. Am I bitter? Yeah, a bit. But mostly, I’m surprised more aspiring writers don’t decide for purely mercenary reasons to parrot right-wing talking points. There’s a lot more money in it.
No doubt there are thousands out there trying, just like the hundreds of wanna-be Rush Limbaughs at local radio stations. But unlike Kristol and Goldberg and just about every other wingut welfare clone, they don’t have the family or political connections. Or a major advertiser (like the Kochs, for example) as a patron.
And then there are the unpaid wingnuts who have what amounts to a regular column in the Letters to the Editor section of small-town papers.
Periodically I email my local paper’s editorial page editor (who’s AA) to plead with him and his publisher for more syndicated liberal voices. This former Knight-Ridder paper actually had a history of being somewhat progressive. The only concession we have to this small city being majority Black is that we get Eugene Robinson every couple of weeks. However, in a quid-pro-quo every week we get Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. Also weekly we get Will, Parker, Thomas, Krauthammer, and Erick Erickson. The latter was given a weekly gig when he was on city council and continues after his resignation of that seat to become a presence up the road at CNN.
The only other liberal ever showing up on those pages is a non-entity named Lenore Skenazy. According to the editors a few years ago the AA editor and she count as liberals. I’ve begged and pleaded for Gail Collins on the premise that at least she is a woman and she can be funny.
Finally, how right you are about the permanent places that many of the crazier conservatives have on the letters pages. A couple of years ago I gave up trying to counter the smearing and untruths by writing my own letters. Also, I’ve developed blood pressure issues and the letters/editorial pages don’t help.
You should try to stay at Residence Inns by Marriott if you ever travel during the week. When I had an interview, the company put me there. Free breakfast and dinner Monday-Thursday, and the breakfast was fantastic. Eggs, fruit, sausage/bacon (I don’t eat those), oatmeal, grits, bagels, bread, fruit. And dinner there’s free booze.
I figured it’d be more expensive than your regular hotel, but it was actually very reasonable. I know when I stayed in one in Reston it was cheaper than most of the others in the area.
when you stay at Marriott you’re giving money to Romney.
They are also anti-gay and give lots of money to fight marriage equality.
Ew. Well, thanks for the heads up. I didn’t pay for it, the company did.
So much for that. See how shit the free market is? How are you supposed to just know these things?
Well looks like there is an opening at politico BooMan.
Reporter Joe Williams leaving Politico
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/06/joe-williams-to-leave-politico-127794.html
Of course you can.
That’s why you won’t get hired.
Duh.
AG
May I ask what brings you to Dover?
Feed me!!!
10 minutes away? Portsmouth. Lots of decent restaurants.
Eat well. It’s a vacation.
AG
Absolutely ~ live a little! The last time I was in Germany, some of the people I was with wanted to go to a McDonalds. Unbelievable!
interesting video. Gov Scott and aids finding out about ACA. the first are all smiles once someone saw the initial “struck down” reporting, then those smiles disappearing once someone corrected them. check out the big azz smiles despite the facts that millions of people might be without health care.
Bondi tells Scott about healthcare decision
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V0p-vl_4qA&feature=player_embedded%E2%80%AA
fascinating! thanks for posting
Of course you’d do a better job than Brooks, Goldberg, and the rest of the rw hacks. You’d also do a better job than 90 percent of the “bipartisan” hacks. Lest your bleeding ego get too puffed up, it’s also necessary to note that so could most of the commenters here.
Guess it’s time for the periodical reminder of what a talented, thoughtful, civil, diverse community you’ve created here. Sometimes I think we could do something more with it.
* snort *
C’mon; get real; “a talented, thoughtful, civil, diverse community” is going nowhere in the modern media world. How boring, how un-hot, how useless for generating howling outrage and fiery denunciations and meretricious meme-spewing and bareknuckle bloviating and all the other good stuff that generates eyeballs and clicks and MONEY MONEY MONEY?
Besides, who among us can claim entree into the Village cocktail circuit? Huh? Huh? Didn’t think so.
I’m not sure much of anybody’s tried very well or very hard. The idea is to take advantage of the Village’s snowballing slide to irrelevancy.
Trouble is, they may be sliding into irrelevancy, but neither they nor the powers that be who fund, disseminate and fawn upon them seem to have noticed that.
But you could never really leave us, right?