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The formerly unprofitable media was briefly boosted by Trumpmania. The Washington Post, the New York Times and a few national outlets and digital hangers on boosted subscription numbers and minted money.
Post-Trump there was a major falloff but now even with the media able to promise a Trump comeback, indictments and trials, its flocks of sheep don’t seem to want to come back.
The troublesome trend is spelled out in research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. For years, the Oxford-based think tank has been asking people around the world about their news-consumption habits. In its latest survey, 38 percent of U.S. respondents say they sometimes or often avoid news, including 41 percent of women and 34 percent of men.
At the same time, the proportion of people who are “extremely” or “very interested” in the news continued to sink. In the United States, this group was in the minority (49 percent) for the first time in the survey’s short history, down from 67 percent in 2015. The institute’s data also suggest a sharper percentage-point drop abroad (including 27 points in the United Kingdom).
The media (like most fanatics) forgot Alinsky’s Rule 7, “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
People are becoming burned out and they’re in the key media demo, wealthy, female and liberal.
Carolyn Cohen, a retired teacher in the Washington area, was a committed MSNBC viewer and used to read The Washington Post cover to cover. Lately, she has backed off, out of a sense of self-preservation.
“I may glance at the headlines, but I can’t handle the stress put on me when I go to the front page,” she says. “What I find is, the news is depressing. It feels like it affects me directly. I don’t know if the world is worse now than it was before. But it never used to feel like a personal threat. Maybe I just feel it more.”
Cohen cites a number of topics that provoke feelings of helplessness: gun violence, climate change and climate-change denial, and President Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 election results.
“What can I do about it?” she says. “Nothing you do gives any control,” other than laying the newspaper aside, turning off the TV and going for a walk.
People feel stressed out. The panic button has been pushed too many times and too many fundraising texts have been swapped across too many resold lists. A lot of the usual stuff just isn’t working anymore. Keeping millions of people in permanent fight-or-flight mode was never an option for anyone except the sociopaths who thought the ride could go on forever. Instead like all those “This one weird trick” headlines from the last decade, the power of the media over a key demo that it kept enthralled with fear and the promise of Muellerian salvation is fading away as those people have been worn out and want out of the craziness.
News avoidance may be a factor in the ominous declines that are pummeling media organizations of all kinds. The major cable-news networks — Fox, MSNBC and CNN — saw a combined viewership drop of 8.4 percent in June compared with the same month a year earlier. And although ratings typically rise as the presidential election cycle picks up, they instead dropped 7 percent from the first quarter of this year to the second.
Web traffic to a variety of news websites has been trending down since peaking around the 2020 election and the Capitol insurrection in January 2021. The New York Times was down 20 percent last month compared with a year earlier, while The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal saw drops of 15 and 14 percent, respectively, according to the digital tracking firm ComScore.
The Reuters Institute’s research found that 32 percent of U.S. news avoiders steer clear of stories about the war in Ukraine, while 43 percent avoid news about national politics; 41 percent pass up stories on social justice; and 40 percent ignore celebrity or entertainment news.
That’s gonna be a problem because without Ukraine, national politics, social justice and celebs, what is the media going to talk about?
A lot of people have nothing better to do with their lives than watch TV. Bored stiff.
My wife somewhat fits into the 41% of women that avoids the news. A devout Christian, she rests on the fact that God has it all under control (which He does) and she doesn’t want to become influenced by all the negativity and propaganda. While that is certainly understandable, I once asked her why God commanded Moses to send spies into the land of Canaan (Numbers 13) when He’d already promised the land to the Israelite’s. “It was a test of faith…and to shake loose Joshua and Caleb from the pack.”, she said.
“Absolutely correct”, was my reply. Suddenly, a florescent bulb was seen brightly over her head. She reads more news now.
Fake news is about as popular as a whiff of Joe Bite-Me’s Depends. Even Karen is gasping for air.
American no longer want to See Read or Hear the same old Fake News the NYT’s is losing its fans as the people turn toa more reliable source of real news not leftists propaganda
It would be very interesting to know what the composition is of those who are dropping off. Conservative or Liberal? If you voted for Joe Biden reading the news must be pretty darn depressing and getting worse.
Only if you have the self-awareness to realize that it’s all your fault.
They know the MSM is fake. Why would they watch it? I certainly don’t. Fox was the last one and now they’re gone. If I want propaganda, I can go on the Internet.
Check out Newsmax and Real America’s Voice. Both are excellent and better than Fox ever was. Thgey’re free, too.
You’ll be glad you did.
We can expect the media to improve readership during the Presidential campaign since they @ctively campaigned for Biden and the Democrats during the last Presidential election campaign and we can expect them to do it again in the coming electoral campaign.
People are interested in politics during the electoral campaign.
THE NEW YORK TIMES is substantially owned by mex billionaire carlos slim who lives across the street from Met.
The NYT is the mouthpiece of joe’s surrender of our borders to Mexico and La Raza supremacy.
It should be known as a propaganda sheet and nothing more.
NYTimes Celebrates Biden’s Cheap Migrant Labor in Elite’s Hotels
Wealthy New Yorkers will get cheaper weekend getaways because President Joe Biden’s migration flood is washing away marketplace pressure to raise wages for Americans, says a celebratory article in the New York Times.
“The [extra supply of workers] has been helpful for businesses like the Weekender hotels in the Adirondacks, ” reporter Jeanne Smialek wrote on July 24, adding:
The firm’s six [legal J-1] visa workers are spread across three of its seven properties, said Keir Weimer, the founder of the company, and are a small but important chunk of its 85-person work force.
My best online sources for news and commentary:
-Daniel Greenfield on Front Page Magazine
-Dan Bongino on his Rumble podcast
-JP Sears on “Awaken with JP” and “JP Reacts” also on Rumble, to actually get a laugh out of the nonsense of the day.
No TV, I see enough clips of the TV news media newscasters to confirm my opinion they are idiots or shills or both.
I’m old enough to remember the newspapers on the doorstep every day, and I was not surprised when their Black Type headlines began to succumb to online clickbait.
I refuse to panic over things I cannot change. Furthermore, I refuse to accept that my gas cookstove and my gasoline-powered automobile contribute toward the end of the world by causing climate change.
Thank you, Daniel, for all you do.
I have no interest in reading or listening to the words of liars.
Don’t know why this dope Carolyn Cohen feels burned out. She BELIEVES the words of liars. She’s getting exactly what she hoped for. Probably just needs a new pair of rose-colored glasses.
You don’t need the NY Times when you’re winning. Nobody needs CNN when Trump is on the outs. CNN needs Trump. Trump needs CNN. Guess who’s winning? Not impressionable young TikTok kids.
The only winning Trump can actualise is primary winning against Florida and DeSantis. Winning for Disney. He’s really good at that and his reality TV show crap which has held sway since Howard Stern got everybody excited.
Carolyn Cohen is a twerp. It’s people like her that empowered the liars in media. And now she’s suffering from burn out? Too bad. It’s not like she’s going to change her position on the subjects that are causing her grief. She’ll take a respite then return to the swill-filled trough soon enough. Her type are legion and will never change their stripes.