Even the alternative weekly newspapers, traditionally a bastion of progressive thought and analysis, have been bought by a monopoly franchise and made a predictable shift to the right in their coverage of local news.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
From the beginning on, newspapers have prospered for one reason: giving readers the news that they want.
When I left Toronto and entered journalism in the late 1990s, I had many notions about the news business, nearly all of them wrong, as it turned out.
From that moment on, the newspaper became a highly lucrative investment for those with a talent for making money or for publishers wanting to gain a fortune.
Television news is now entertainment, and the stories are being written by the people that have a special interest in them.
Journalism is what maintains democracy. It's the force for progressive social change.
The tabloids operate in an amoral parallel universe where the bottom line is selling newspapers.
I read the newspapers avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction.
I think there'd be huge losses if there weren't newspapers. I know everything's shifting to the Internet and some people would say, 'News is news, what you're talking about is a change of consumption, not the product that's out there.' But I think there is a change.
For heaven's sakes, in the newspaper days, when we had competing newspapers, and the newsstands sale was as important as the circulation - as the agreed-upon circulation, whatever you call that - in those days, why, gosh, the sensationalism was tremendous.
Every newspaper in the country covers stories that other newspapers cover. Every industry is filled with people who are competing to do the best job providing a particular service.