The end of an era

Today, the latest circulation figures for the nations newspapers were released. The biggest paper, the Wall Street Journal, achieved a gain in circulation of 0.5%. No other paper in the top 25 had an increase. The New York Times did manage to keep lost circulation just below ten percent, but the only paper in the top 25 with small losses was the New York Post which saw about a 5% decline in circulation. The figures are truly remarkable. We are seeing the end of the dominance of the large liberal daily newspapers in informing this country. Their readers are literally dying. As readers in their 70's and 80's pass on, very few young people are taking up the habit of reading a paper.

Beyond the loss of readers for the newspapers, we have the great decline in viewership of the network evening news programs. In addition, the liberal cable news networks like CNN and MSNBC have lost their audiences -- both are down about 50% in just a year.

Put this all together and the liberal media is crashing big time. In the latest poll which asked Americans where they got their news, the biggest source identified, by far, was Fox News. Indeed, Fox is the only TV news source that has shown growth in the last two years. Fox's ratings have soared as those of the other networks and the paper circulation have crashed.

But for Fox's success, we could all buy into the story that people are just moving to new media like the internet to get their news. Clearly, that is not the case. The only paper to do well, the Wall Street Journal, is also the most conservative of the top 25. Fox News has grown quickly at the expense of its rivals. The truth is that Americans have found news outlets that do not feed them the liberal/left line all of the time and they have come to rely on these outlets to inform them of what is happening. All of this bodes well for the country. All of this also is driving the left crazy.

A good example is the demonization of the Tea party by the left. This story line has been picked up by all sorts of liberal media. Years ago, that would have been the end of it as the Tea party would have become in most people's minds the modern incarnation of the KKK. Now, however, most people have seen the pictures of tehte party rallies shown on Fox. The well behaved, middle class folks hardly look like terrorists or racists. Their speeches are moderate. Their rallies are non-violent except for the few instances where thugs tried to break up the rallies. As a result, the liberla libel of the tea praty just did not work. The left is frantic as a result. They keep denouncing the Tea party, not realizing that the attack did not and cannot work since they have lost their monopoly of the news media.