Say what? 'Nobody reads newspapers anymore' allegedly gets columnist fired
The Internet, as we all know, has taken a toll on the venerable newspaper industry--so we'd understand that print media folks would be a little bit sensitive when their writers crack jokes about it. But, as it turns out, they might be more thin-skinned than we thought. Humor writer Elliot Kalan, who writes a column for the free daily newspaper New York Metro, might've just gotten fired over it.
Kalan, who is also a segment producer for Comedy Central's The Daily Show, wrote a column in the publication's August 3 edition entitled "Newspapers: Information's Horse & Buggy, in which he asserted that "Nobody reads newspapers anymore...As this very copy of Metro shows, the only way to get most people to read a newspaper is to literally force it into their hands." Ouch. A potshot not only to the print media as a whole, but also to the phenomenon of free dailies that are ungracefully waved in your face like giant newsprint mosquitoes as soon as you emerge from the dank underworld of New York City's subways.
New York magazine's Web site reported that the powers that be over at Metro, which also runs Boston and Philadelphia editions, weren't too happy, and sacked Kalan immediately.
Betting pool time: Which blog will hire him now?
(Via Jossip)
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline.
http://amitadeshpande.blogspot.com/2007/04/what-is-newspaper.html
quashed by a free press.
Frankly, a newspaper that cannot tolerate criticism of itself, is
definitely off my reading list. What else do they censor?
magazines, but newspapers take up too much space in the
recycling bin.
It's by Eric Baerren, and, probably because he was hired for his verbal skills, he eloquently makes points I was put to great pains to make so much less eloquently!
- Thank God for newspapers!
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by coffeecan
August 15, 2007 6:39 PM PDT
- I hope newspapers are here to stay.
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Reply to this comment
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(9 Comments)I can read them when I go to the outhouse, when I go fishing, in the yard, in the swamp, in an airplane, in a car, on a bicycle, when the electricity is out from hurricanes or ice storms or any reason. I can read them the day they are printed or 50 years later. They are a matter of record. They have more substance than any news that I read on the web, (maybe not much sometimes but usually). Newspapers have to be more careful what they print than what a web site does. Sorry, until I see it in "print". it's not real.
TV news is usually just a flash and has no depth. Web news has no permanence; it's gone in the next hour. I really enjoy "reading" a newspaper more than I do "scanning" the web news. Plus so many times the web news sites are just like the tv news, they go for the "flash" headline. But I do like the web news much better than the tv news. The tv news stinks, except for emergencies. Dan Rather's false portrayals of several heavy news stories ruined the veracity of most tv news reporters/anchors. Please don't let newspapers go away.