Quote of the Day

Via Atrios:

I think we're long past the time when most print newspapers could've been saved by simply providing a better product, but I also think there was a window to save, if not the print versions, the institutions which published them. Obviously the WaPo can survive as long as Kaplan Test Prep [The Washington Post] makes enough to keep them afloat, but I do wish more journalists bemoaning the losses in their industry would recognize that at least to some degree ceasing to be relevant and authoritative publications is a part of the problem. Why should people read them when they have to spend a lot of time figuring out when they're being bullsh%$#ed?

I've said it before, many times: One of the problems with newspapers is that their management does not believe that newspapers can survive, so their business plan is to suck the marrow out of these institutions, not to provide good product.

You saw this phenomenon with the American rail industry in the 1970s.