Monday, May 05, 2014

Left Behind

We are all being left behind by the Albuquerque Journal on its reporting of the Primary election in which early voting starts tomorrow.  It is kind of astonishing that we have not seen any profiles on the  candidates yet.  Although there seems to be little interest in this primary election there still needs to be some action on part of the media to let folks see some information on the candidates.

If you stop to think about it, the only folks who seem to be reading  newspapers any more are senior citizens.  And they are the ones most likely to vote.  So, you would think there would be more timely coverage on the candidate profiles, but I have a feeling that the reporters at the paper are so over worked due to cutbacks that they just can't get it done quickly.

I  have come to the conclusion that, seriously, newspapers are on their last decade of existence.  There is just many other ways of getting information.  And, it is pretty special interest and diluted.   Most people will only go to web sources on issues that they are interested in reading about.  They have that choice, while with newspapers you usually read other stuff too.

Finally, since most newspaper readers are seniors, and they vote, why is all the attention put on TV ads that try to reach voters that have 300 channels to choose from?  That market is so incredibly fragmented that few people will see a political ad.  It would make sense to buy ads in the Journal.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The sooner the Journal folds the better. Since the demise of the Tribune, the Journal has become more and more right wing and all too often reports stories the GOP wants reported. It no longer even tries to be objective in reporting the news. It is now down to 80,000 subscriptions a year. Circulation has gotten so bad that the Journal actually has papers delivered free of charge to non-subscribers and neighborhoods on occasion so that it can tell advertisers it reaches a certain number of readers. You would be surprised at how many complaints the Journal gets when they deliver their paper to non-subscribers. Talk about cooking the numbers in order to sell ads!

Anonymous said...

What about the Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe Reporter, Albuquerque Alibi and even the Las Cruces Sun Times?

Jim Baca said...

So, true on the rest of the media.