The pond always likes to start the day with a vision splendid and can there be a more splendid vision than the one to be found in the NY Daily News here? (with more snaps and the story).
And thus restored the pond can move on to the gloomy news of the day.
The pond, thanks to the reptiles, recently took a look at the glowing circulation figures being peddled in and about the lizard rags.
A reader responded with a great link to a New York Times story about Fairfax, Sydney Morning Herald Faces Uncertain Print Future in Australia.
Of course it could be said in short form - pay a shit load of money to dumb executives to lead you down the wrong path, and there'll be trouble at mill.
Selfishly, the pond's main concern is for the cartoonists, a fragile luxury, but an essential one, caviare for mind and soul, just a little morsel a day is all that's needed, and with so few homes for them left ... and made all the more precarious by so many bad Fairfax decisions and such waste of intellectual property and masthead status ...
And then just as the reptiles peddled their future in print as a certain, awe-inspiring future, came the bad news ...
Desperate stuff, spinning and turning as they dangle in the breeze.
Well there's no reason to reprint all the figures at the pond - they're available at Mumbrella in full detail here - let's just note that the story shows a drop in print YOY of -2.5% for the reptile daily rag, and not so bad for the weekend edition at -0.60% - and that despite papering every airport lounge in the land, along with any other location that can be easily and discreetly managed ...
It's the suburban freebie giveaway for high flyers.
And the picture isn't much happier for print magazines if you look at the data at Mumbrella clustered under the header ABCs: Bauer Media's Cosmopolitan's circulation plummets to Cleo levels.
But enough of the gloom, because it's time to look at why the reptiles of Oz have achieved such a stunning circulation success, and surely it must be due in no small part to their great faith in one of the world's great climate scientists.
Now lately he's slipped way down in the lizard Oz's digital rankings.
The diligent reader has to scroll way down the page to get the latest jeremiad of the Jeremiah Ancient Mariner, but it's always worth it ...forget the bullfrog, unleash the kraken, bring on Moorice ...
Now before we begin, perhaps the pond should note that Moorice was at one point in time very optimistic about Britain in a post-Brexit world and Boris and voice of the exploited people and yadda yadda, and thought was quite keen on the Donald, voice of the exploited ignored people and yadda yadda, even if the emperor might not have that many clothes.
Time now to plunge in to the latest load of doom and gloom ...
Phew, is there anything at all to celebrate?
Well yes, Moorice didn't mention climate science, not once. Thank the long absent lord he feels no need to brood about and rebut alarmist stories such as Historical Data Shows Arctic Melt of Last Two Decades Is 'Unprecedented'.
Clearly there's absolutely no Time to listen to the ice scientists about the Arctic death spiral.
It's around this point in proceedings that the pond usually likes to snort a little caviare, just to be able to keep going ...
And more Rowe to snort here, and so back to Moorice for the rest of the doom and gloom, but sssh, whatever you do, don't mention climate science or that vast UN conspiracy to establish a world government ...
Now it's possible that around this point some might feel the need to head off to The Conversation to read once again Mark Beeson asking Maurice Newman: mad, bad or sad?
The pond could settle for all three, but also it has to marvel at the way Moorice manages to assert all's well with the planet - except for the UN-led climate science conspiracy - and all's wrong with the world - thanks to the failure of capitalism - and all's right for the world, thanks to the arrival of the Donald promising a new era ...
Yes, it's mystifying, all this hand-wringing about worrying gambles at a difficult time, and the need for a hard-nosed conversation being long overdue, and deploring the snake-oil selling huckster bankrupt Trump for spruiking fear and nonsense ... because where was all that back not so long ago in June?
So much for the west's silent majority that Maurice and the reptiles of Oz purport to represent, report to and care about ...
Now the pond could go on celebrating Moorice all day - you can google the rest of that screed if you have the strength - and the pond could celebrate with Moorice his complete lack of moral entitlement, and the pond could marvel at the way the reptiles have spun a remarkably successful business model and excellent set of circulation figures from devotedly publishing Moorice's thoughts ...
Instead the pond will settle for another snort of caviare, though this piece of Popery is somewhat dry and astringent and unsettling, and more Pope here ... oh give the cartoonists a hit, they're the best part of the Fairfax business model ...
Hmmm. "Of course it could be said in short form - pay a shit load of money to dumb executives to lead you down the wrong path, and there'll be trouble at mill."
ReplyDeleteSuccinct and bitingly accurate, DP, as always.
However, at least according to some ( http://www.localhistories.org/media.html ) the first successful daily newspaper in Britain commenced in 1702, and weekend papers in 1780. That's a fair while ago. As an ex paper boy, myself, I wonder how they used to do home deliveries before the age of the bicycle and whether my long predecessors stood on street corners with a bunch of newspapers under their arms selling them to the passing crowd of Bob Cratchits on their way to the office.
Then of course we had the magazines: weekly, monthly, quarterly. Mostly all a bit Curate's egg, but at least a month was generally enough time to read the whole magazine, and even maybe think about what the articles said.
My dearly beloved partner, for one, favours the Fairfax Good Weekend because she reckons that, being less frequent, and often some time after events, one gets a much better standard of journalism: more thoughtful and better informed than "dailys". And heaps better than the web's many "momentaries".
I do hope we can keep journalism of the Good Weekend kind in this brave new media world we all seem destined to inhabit.
PS: wasn't that Pope cartoon racist ? Won't Leyonhjelm be after him quick-smart ?
DeleteHi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteI do hope I am interpreting Moorice correctly.
Our brave free-marketeer appears to be against the European Union because it has become the biggest single trading block in the world, has developed an internal single market, allows free movement of goods, services and capital and has removed tariffs and trade restrictions between all of its 28 member states. These are evidently bad things.
On the other hand our brave defender of democratic freedoms is for Trade Agreements such as the TTIP and the TTP as they were designed and signed far away from public scrutiny by faceless bureaucrats, politicians and the lobbyists of select multinationals and will curtail the rights and laws of democratically elected governments. These are evidently good things.
His logic as ever is infallible.
DiddyWrote