For decades, the “must-read” (and buy) magazines in our house were SI, TV Guide and Newsweek. Our family also usually subscribed to Readers Digest. My late mother always subscribed to Southern Living. We all know what happened to TV Guide. Readers Digest probably has ten million fewer READERS than it did in the 1980s. I don’t know about Southern Living, but I hope it’s still living.
I remember reading the "Condensed Books" readers digest used to put out - plus each issue had some good word puzzles to solve as well - the good ole days I reckon when your LaSalle was reliable Archie Bunker style and good looking chicks were fit and trim in a bathing suit.
I thought Readers Digest was dead until I got a email promotion for it. I have subscribed and while it's not as big as it used to be, I get daily emails with "best way to cook popcorn", etc., style tips. So far I have enjoyed it quite a bit.
I always loved Readers Digest, but I haven't seen it in probably a decade. I'm glad they are still publishing. I remember reading that Ronald Reagan once said it was his favorite magazine. For decades, Readers Digest had one of the largest paid subscriber numbers of any magazine in the world.
I used to have 20 of those Readers Digest Condensed Books. I wish I still had them. My current house doens't have any floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. All our books are in 25 boxes sitting in the garage!
My wife's mother who passed six year ago or so, she was an English Professor at UNC-Charlotte long time and she had so, so, so, so many books.....sadly some of them got moldy, but we saved as many as we could.
Just the other day, my wife was trying to tidy up her office area and she decided - lets give away some of these books - I think there was only one book I said to my wife - "I'll take that" - but otherwise we took all these books to a bookstore cafe near the Habitat for Humanity place and we deposited them in the box including some really, really sweet ones put out by Time-Life.....back in the day.
~
I think in a way this was therapeutic for my wife to do this - and she and I got out of the house and did something a little different and sort of made a date out of it. It was a good thing - a win-win.
My cousin had a subscription a few years ago and would save them for me to read on our bi-weekly dinners. It's still a fairly decent magazine tbh but not sure I'd pay for it now a days.
I mention this anecdote about Finebaum only to highlight the importance of key writers …. and, to point out that “famous columnists” are not as big a deal as they were for decades.
If you are over 45, you probably remember a dozen famous syndicated columnist you enjoyed reading. The most famous syndicated columnist in the South was the late Lewis Grizzard, whose column was in The Messenger and every paper in the South.
I guess today people can still find their favorite writers, but they are NOT paying their local newspaper to read them.
No one reads. Even professionals seem to demand that communication be limited to the frame size of a cellphone screen.
This is not a good omen for the future of nuanced analysis, adequate detail and necessary context. This is no doubt related to why political and scientific reasoning is in a death spiral.
Thanks, Mr. Rice. I frequently chastise people for complaining but not attempting to suggest a solution. In my comment above, I have myself committed that very-same act. So, the question is what can be done? It takes a civilization to raise a child, to borrow and [ ̷I̷ ̷b̷e̷l̷i̷e̷v̷e̷ ] modify the title of a book by Hillary Clinton, now, many years [ ̷a̷g̷o̷] old. Perhaps my comment to another, recent post of yours might do as a prescriptive to fill this need. But let's not leave me off of the hook too fast.
Writing and vocabulary are the stuff of thinking. I cannot write even a simpl[ ̷y̷]e comment or email without learning about some weak spot in my reasoning. I suspect that this is the painful encounter that many wish to avoid. Instead, by bits and pieces they contribute to anything that would undermine the requirement to read, write, to know (both words and to have extended ideas and insights), to communicate truthfully and to negotiate. They do not want to be exposed in their inadequacies (we all share many of these in general) and to allow the clarification that good writing and thinking demands. The underminers of civilization have captured the prerogatives of government. Clarifications via writing and thinking would tend to disarm their mob-like exercise of power via the one-sided misuse of the governmental shielding of their positions, as well as the bureaucracy's ability to punish with bias and prejudice. They have labored so long and hard, mainly by deception, to capture these powers and advantages. Such rule depends on an army of the less intelligent and those unable to communicate to act as their defensive moat and their offensive soldiers and aggressive police. Communication, real communication grounded in good faith, requires vulnerability and the possibility of relinquishing a point of error or unfair advantage or practice. To ideologues bent on winning even despite virtue, such vulnerability is unacceptable.
We're far closer to a noxious blend of Messrs. Huxley and Orwell's dystopias than anyone would care to think. We carry our telescreens with us wherever we go and pay ±$100/month for the privilege, meanwhile the Gulag of Compulsion Schooling negated any need for any Eugenics program or assembly-line reproduction, well over 100 years ago.
People did not want to comment, but they sure were interested in the comment below, "The tyranny crafters . . ." See how people are. You learn a lot about human personality and behavior by writing articles, commenting and engaging in conversation (when it rarely happens).
The tyranny crafters have had several more decades since Messrs. H & O of scientific and psycho-engineering study showing how the Bernaysian theory of propaganda and advertising can be made identical, potent and semantically toxic using practical, electronic-media methods. Just let yourself be (advisedly only briefly) exposed to the force-fed garbage "news" pop ups of your Microsoft-Windows news bar, Google News, Yahoo News---all utter, mind- and virtue-twisting sewage, in my estimation. Thank God that since I left my parents' home, polluted by the poisonous fumes of Norman Lear's cognitive programming called "All in the Family," I have never since owned a television set. Yes, that did it. I have Norman Lear to thank. He actually saved my by his unintentional, paradoxical effect. His foul, mentally-flatulent production so awakened me to what propaganda was, I could not go back. It worked powerfully on even my 17-y.o. intellect that I said to myself, hey, this reveals itself! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Norman Lear. There is something more powerful than propaganda acting on what the materialists assume to be a merely-material goop stuffed in the skull. It is called the Logos. The Greeks began the recognition of this long before St. John wrote of Logos during his exile to the Isle of Patmos. Logos will win out. Just watch.
I think I'm starting to like this "Cutting Room Floor" technique - now at some point are things going to get edited out?
That question is mainly rhetorical cause it doesn't really matter, but I think it is worth contemplating - that is why the only "editor" I really trust is my own self - that is why SubStack is offering something up here that I feel is of great value.
My stories are always too long ... so I have to cut ... but I still get some of this info into the Reader Comments. Who knows? The stuff I cut might be important.
I also add a little more of my own opinions in the Reader Comments - a little more speculation and conjecture than I put in my articles proper!
Hell yes Bill. I thoroughly enjoy your articles - it must be evident - I mean look at the image near my icon - it means I enjoy reading what you have to share enough to just go ahead and send a token of appreciation in the form of currency (US $ I reckon) - in fact, I think the term is "Founding Member".....maybe, maybe not - but I think there might be value in contemplating one more category on this sort of thing cause think about it - if you truly are a "Founding Member" then it ought just be a one time capital expenditure to demonstrate your founding intent. If it has to be renewed annually then it ain't really "founding" in my way of contemplating just now as I type this. And guess what?
What do you think about the idea of a "one-time" payment to essentially have lifetime access to what a writer is sharing on Substack? If the writer changes their mind later, oh well, you made the one time payment, but on the other hand if the writer sticks around the one-time payment made in advance means you can budget accordingly going forward. Both the writer and the contributor.
One thing I really don't care for is monthly payment installments - I think they are sort of insidious - they may make sense for some things, but lately they just seem to be traps of mammon.
~
Changing the subject, it pained me to watch my beloved Buffalo Bills lose to the Chiefs, but I had a feeling and there is always next season I reckon - plus....tis just a game.
~
Regardless, I'm willing to pledge support for your efforts long term - and here is the thing - even if there is a one time "founding" contribution done with diligence, doesn't mean there wont be further contributions out of respect for quality content. Seems like it could be a win-win.
I like your idea, Ken. For Substack writers like myself to "make it," we probably need really big gifts or donations. That's what support these corrupt organizatiions - millionaires give these organizations huge checks. I just tried to change my "Founders" Level to $1500 so I might get some of those really big gifts. I can't tell if this change took place because I'm already a subscriber and I don't see my Suscriber levels as readers see them.
If I could get one $1500 gift a month - plus my $6/monthly ones and my $50 annual ones, I could make $40,000 a year, which is my goal from this business.
I thought of you when the Chiefs won. My sympathies! We're in the same boat with Bama falling short in the playoffs. Wait until next year!
Regional differences used to be a lot more pronounced than they are today, and great columnists from outside your own region could provide an interesting window into the culture of their city. I'm thinking specifically of Mike Royko. I grew up in the South, so although I enjoyed Grizzard, I really loved Chicago's Royko, because it was like reading some interesting travel writing about daily life in a foreign culture -- plus the man had a fantastic wit and an inimitable style that made his writing enjoyable for its own sake. Where I live today, my local "paper" is that godawful website you mentioned in your post, al.com, where every columnist writes in the exact same style and from the exact same perspective as any other "journalist" in California or New York, which is to say that you could replace them all with ChatGPT and nobody would notice.
I was also a big fan of Royko. I wonder if he would remain silent about these outrages if he was alive and still writing today. Also, H.L. Mencken.
That company that owns and operates al.com owns about 30 former good newspapers ... and has killed them all. Their few journalists are the worst.
All of these sites (I think) used to have Reader Comments. But the company did away with that free speech forum because too many readers were skewering the sorry journalism in the stories.
Also, the "letter to the editor" doesn't exist any more - nor the disagreeing "guest column" rebuttal. I know because I kept sending letters and guest op-eds to al.com ... and they never publish them.
Cutting Room Floor Text - 3 (I cut this because I thought it might seem like whining ... so I decided to restrict the whining to the Reader Comments) ....
If I wanted to try to get a full-time job at a traditional newspaper or magazine, no editor would hire me because the subject matter of most of my stories is strictly taboo or off-limits. Plus, like Sports Illustrated, most of these companies are laying off editorial staffers- even the woke “pack journalists” who are eager to produce the content that publishers demand.
SI committed harakiri with its grotesque redefinition of what a top, fit athletic body looks like. The Swimsuit soft porn edition was its biggest moneymaker, turned into a house of horrors. Add in the woke state of pretty much all athletics, kneeling to career criminals, replacing the US Flag with the LBGTQABCDEF... and BLM flags, garage door handles called nooses, Trump and conservative hating, celebrating men winning women's Olympic weightlifting, all of the cultural destruction of our society indoctrination through sport made more of us get outside ourselves than watch sports as spectators under mental assault. SI became just another plunger and needle for all of the mind poison being injected in society. Good riddance.
As for the rest of the news media industry, I too remember old newspapers, two paper towns, where there once was a diversity of opinion and spin on the news to choose from. I remember Denver being a two-paper town, the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post. The RMN was once considered the more conservative of the two, the DP was always a far-left rag. But when the RMN tacked further left its raison d'etre was gone, nobody wanted a DP-lite paper. And it folded, leaving Denver with its one far-left rag that reads as communistic as Pravda once did in the old Soviet Union. It's literally the same voice that once came from our nation's communist enemy. I know, because I also used to read Pravda, watch TASS and listen to Radio Moscow when I was growing up in Miami. I always wanted to hear the voice of my adversaries, unfiltered, I even read the CCP's offiical media outlets today.
And that's what happened to American's newspapers and journalism. They've tacked so far left that they are quite literally what Pravda, TASS and Radio Moscow used to be. And the free market for that is small. Which is why they demand censorship. They've killed themselves by transforming into Ministry of Propaganda outlets. And without totalitarianism that restricts, punishes voices that don't parrot government propaganda those outlets shrivel up and die. The Enemy of the People cannot survive free markets; they are purely tools of propaganda. May they all go the way of SI.
I miss Jimmy Breslin and WFB's writing. Growing up in Boston, reading The Boston Globe and The Record American (now Boston Herald) was mandatory and mostly fun. We had some of the best sports writers in the country, and some would even call games on national TV.
My friend's dad was an editor at the Herald and he'd get us great seats for The Beanpot annual hockey tournament; local teams like BU and BC were often ranked in the top five in the country.
My GF's dad was a Boston beat cop and he scored us tickets to my first World Series game. YES, I saw Fisk hit THAT HR; many argue it was the greatest Series game ever played. Robin Williams' character tells Matt Damon's character all about it in, "Good Will Hunting"! Man, I miss those days. But, I miss actual journalism more!
Mr. Rice for whatever it's worth. In my opinion, what you're doing now is far more important. We need voices like yours now more than ever. As you have so eloquently pointed out, all of the mainstream media appears to be captured. We need rebels like you who refused to bow down to the powers that be, keep speaking The truth and it shall set us all free.. As the old saying goes, better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. I think you are lighting bonfires that will guide us out of this darkness. Keep up the good work bill. god bless you. Don't let these sorry bastards win
Agreed. Here and at many similar blogs that allow comments, I often feel more informed than even from the official article/essay. If for no other reason, than to be exposed to two or sometimes many more perspectives. Even the Bible quoter, the whacko peddling his favorite conspracy theories or the likely (sometimes blatantly obvious) shill for Deep State, Pharma, a foreign power, etc. may provide a perspective, even if the only "value" it provides is to show how irrelevant or simply untrue many assertions are.
I really could care less about anyone's weight or appearance - with a few glaringly noticeable exceptions (live and let live, as they say) - but let's be honest....celebrating fatness keeps people, complacent, apathetic, unhealthy, and therefore, the hospital coffers full. There's no money in keeping people well. Frog in the kettle...we're fine, everything's fine.
I don’t care about other bodies but I do care about someone telling me what I think and desire is wrong. Put a 100 lb overweight woman on a cover AS A SYMBOL OF BEAUTY when I know she isn’t one (for most of us) and it irritates me. I did see a street videographer interview young women. They were shown a picture of a very obese woman in a ‘sexy’ bikini, a cross between a string bikini and dominatrix wear and asked to describe her. ‘Beautiful, sensual, stunning’ were the words used. They adamantly declared her gorgeous. The woman was easily 200 pounds overweight. Massive flab rolls. The interviewer said to a few of the rounder girls ‘yes, you remind me of her’. Hahahaha. They were appalled of course. Because they don’t really believe she is beautiful.
I can also identify when Sports Illustrated sports mag competitor, ESPN The Magazine, jumped the shark. That was the special edition devoted to Global Warming! A sports magazine that spent 50 pages telling readers they had to worry about Climate Change.
I wonder what editors of that edition thought about the Buffalo bills postponing their playoff game because it was too cold and they had too much snow.
Really, when Disney bought ESPN that was game over as far as my affection for ESPN.
Real inflation is at work with this SI issue (where the company couldn't make a debt payment). It seems like there might be some labor issue where writers want higher salaries, which the owners must not be able to pay. Also, I know printing costs are going through the roof as are mailing costs ... and fewer people are paying for subscriptions and Pfizer can only buy so many ads for each edition.
It's expensive to produce a publication like SI, which probably doesn't want to pay to send its journalists and photographers all over the world to cover sporting events like it used to do.
Add it all up, and expect more publications to cease publication .... or cutback even more on staff - which is why we're also getting all these stories written by AI.
In my article, I noted that most big cities once had at leas two newspapers. This meant journalists were competing for big and important scoops (which would mean more readers for their newspapers). Of course, today, all the big journalism scoops are off limits and can't even be investigated or reported. There's no journalist who is going to "break" any story on dangerous vaccines or, my pet subject, "early spread." Nobody is going to break any story on election fraud or Jeff Epstein's VIP clients ... or that Joe Biden definitely has ever-worsening dementia.
I wonder if we still had real competition in journalism among the "mainstream" news organizations if some of these scoops/scandals would have already been exposed.
Unless you're a government sponsored media outlet in the great white north, expect to be persecuted, censored and arrested for trying to expose an alternative viewpoint... that's the problem here
I worked at a Regional Bell Operating company in the 1990's. Once the Internet appeared in 1993, the future of print newspapers was clear. I remember striking up a conversation with another business professional on a flight in 1994. He understood the dynamics at play - digital provided a much cheaper cost structure for "printing" the newspapers and for selling/displaying the ads. We both acknowledged that all newspapers were "dead men walking" and likely would be for some time before it all collapsed.
Various ventures attempted to build locally focused digital news/entertainment outlets, but the economics simply didn't work. The cost of generating content exceeded the advertising revenue. Social media eventually became the replacement, although for the end user it's a much less enjoyable/rewarding experience.
Went to school with the former editor of SI. He was in heaven there, made good money and got to play golf with titans like Palmer and Tiger. He got out just in time!
Our little local newspaper is about $33. Per month. Now one has to get it in the mail. Right. Mail means not morning, & lucky if same day. Plus on a big day it’s 8 pages, usually less. Who wants to pay for that. Too bad as local news is now lost to most of us.
Like in most news that we need and are looking for "it is spread all over the place." A little here. A little there. You practically have to give up your real life searching for it. Our local paper changed hands and the population is hysterical as the paper seemed to have jumped off a cliff so people feel deprived of their paper. It looks like my solution will be to see what is on Facebook and Instagram, and the local chat list. Then become my own reporter by driving/walking around town and talking to anyone and everyone I can!
Cutting Room Floor Text - 1 ....
For decades, the “must-read” (and buy) magazines in our house were SI, TV Guide and Newsweek. Our family also usually subscribed to Readers Digest. My late mother always subscribed to Southern Living. We all know what happened to TV Guide. Readers Digest probably has ten million fewer READERS than it did in the 1980s. I don’t know about Southern Living, but I hope it’s still living.
I remember reading the "Condensed Books" readers digest used to put out - plus each issue had some good word puzzles to solve as well - the good ole days I reckon when your LaSalle was reliable Archie Bunker style and good looking chicks were fit and trim in a bathing suit.
I thought Readers Digest was dead until I got a email promotion for it. I have subscribed and while it's not as big as it used to be, I get daily emails with "best way to cook popcorn", etc., style tips. So far I have enjoyed it quite a bit.
I always loved Readers Digest, but I haven't seen it in probably a decade. I'm glad they are still publishing. I remember reading that Ronald Reagan once said it was his favorite magazine. For decades, Readers Digest had one of the largest paid subscriber numbers of any magazine in the world.
I used to have 20 of those Readers Digest Condensed Books. I wish I still had them. My current house doens't have any floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. All our books are in 25 boxes sitting in the garage!
My wife's mother who passed six year ago or so, she was an English Professor at UNC-Charlotte long time and she had so, so, so, so many books.....sadly some of them got moldy, but we saved as many as we could.
Just the other day, my wife was trying to tidy up her office area and she decided - lets give away some of these books - I think there was only one book I said to my wife - "I'll take that" - but otherwise we took all these books to a bookstore cafe near the Habitat for Humanity place and we deposited them in the box including some really, really sweet ones put out by Time-Life.....back in the day.
~
I think in a way this was therapeutic for my wife to do this - and she and I got out of the house and did something a little different and sort of made a date out of it. It was a good thing - a win-win.
~
Ken
My cousin had a subscription a few years ago and would save them for me to read on our bi-weekly dinners. It's still a fairly decent magazine tbh but not sure I'd pay for it now a days.
They offered and I took $10 a year. Worth it in my opinion.
That's less than $1/a month. Not bad for many hours of reading enjoyment.
Cutting Room Floor Text - 2 ....
I mention this anecdote about Finebaum only to highlight the importance of key writers …. and, to point out that “famous columnists” are not as big a deal as they were for decades.
If you are over 45, you probably remember a dozen famous syndicated columnist you enjoyed reading. The most famous syndicated columnist in the South was the late Lewis Grizzard, whose column was in The Messenger and every paper in the South.
I guess today people can still find their favorite writers, but they are NOT paying their local newspaper to read them.
No one reads. Even professionals seem to demand that communication be limited to the frame size of a cellphone screen.
This is not a good omen for the future of nuanced analysis, adequate detail and necessary context. This is no doubt related to why political and scientific reasoning is in a death spiral.
I agree, David. This is an ominous macro and micro trend.
Thanks, Mr. Rice. I frequently chastise people for complaining but not attempting to suggest a solution. In my comment above, I have myself committed that very-same act. So, the question is what can be done? It takes a civilization to raise a child, to borrow and [ ̷I̷ ̷b̷e̷l̷i̷e̷v̷e̷ ] modify the title of a book by Hillary Clinton, now, many years [ ̷a̷g̷o̷] old. Perhaps my comment to another, recent post of yours might do as a prescriptive to fill this need. But let's not leave me off of the hook too fast.
Writing and vocabulary are the stuff of thinking. I cannot write even a simpl[ ̷y̷]e comment or email without learning about some weak spot in my reasoning. I suspect that this is the painful encounter that many wish to avoid. Instead, by bits and pieces they contribute to anything that would undermine the requirement to read, write, to know (both words and to have extended ideas and insights), to communicate truthfully and to negotiate. They do not want to be exposed in their inadequacies (we all share many of these in general) and to allow the clarification that good writing and thinking demands. The underminers of civilization have captured the prerogatives of government. Clarifications via writing and thinking would tend to disarm their mob-like exercise of power via the one-sided misuse of the governmental shielding of their positions, as well as the bureaucracy's ability to punish with bias and prejudice. They have labored so long and hard, mainly by deception, to capture these powers and advantages. Such rule depends on an army of the less intelligent and those unable to communicate to act as their defensive moat and their offensive soldiers and aggressive police. Communication, real communication grounded in good faith, requires vulnerability and the possibility of relinquishing a point of error or unfair advantage or practice. To ideologues bent on winning even despite virtue, such vulnerability is unacceptable.
We're far closer to a noxious blend of Messrs. Huxley and Orwell's dystopias than anyone would care to think. We carry our telescreens with us wherever we go and pay ±$100/month for the privilege, meanwhile the Gulag of Compulsion Schooling negated any need for any Eugenics program or assembly-line reproduction, well over 100 years ago.
People did not want to comment, but they sure were interested in the comment below, "The tyranny crafters . . ." See how people are. You learn a lot about human personality and behavior by writing articles, commenting and engaging in conversation (when it rarely happens).
The tyranny crafters have had several more decades since Messrs. H & O of scientific and psycho-engineering study showing how the Bernaysian theory of propaganda and advertising can be made identical, potent and semantically toxic using practical, electronic-media methods. Just let yourself be (advisedly only briefly) exposed to the force-fed garbage "news" pop ups of your Microsoft-Windows news bar, Google News, Yahoo News---all utter, mind- and virtue-twisting sewage, in my estimation. Thank God that since I left my parents' home, polluted by the poisonous fumes of Norman Lear's cognitive programming called "All in the Family," I have never since owned a television set. Yes, that did it. I have Norman Lear to thank. He actually saved my by his unintentional, paradoxical effect. His foul, mentally-flatulent production so awakened me to what propaganda was, I could not go back. It worked powerfully on even my 17-y.o. intellect that I said to myself, hey, this reveals itself! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Norman Lear. There is something more powerful than propaganda acting on what the materialists assume to be a merely-material goop stuffed in the skull. It is called the Logos. The Greeks began the recognition of this long before St. John wrote of Logos during his exile to the Isle of Patmos. Logos will win out. Just watch.
I think I'm starting to like this "Cutting Room Floor" technique - now at some point are things going to get edited out?
That question is mainly rhetorical cause it doesn't really matter, but I think it is worth contemplating - that is why the only "editor" I really trust is my own self - that is why SubStack is offering something up here that I feel is of great value.
Regards,
BK
My stories are always too long ... so I have to cut ... but I still get some of this info into the Reader Comments. Who knows? The stuff I cut might be important.
I also add a little more of my own opinions in the Reader Comments - a little more speculation and conjecture than I put in my articles proper!
Hell yes Bill. I thoroughly enjoy your articles - it must be evident - I mean look at the image near my icon - it means I enjoy reading what you have to share enough to just go ahead and send a token of appreciation in the form of currency (US $ I reckon) - in fact, I think the term is "Founding Member".....maybe, maybe not - but I think there might be value in contemplating one more category on this sort of thing cause think about it - if you truly are a "Founding Member" then it ought just be a one time capital expenditure to demonstrate your founding intent. If it has to be renewed annually then it ain't really "founding" in my way of contemplating just now as I type this. And guess what?
I'm a "Founding Member" in SubStack!
(ha, ha.... $2000 I think it was.....)
Ken
Your support humbles me, Ken.
BTW, check out Zero Hedge right now. They just ran one of my most important "early spread" stories. This is a big deal to me.
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/covid-didnt-suddenly-become-deadly-april-2020
What do you think about the idea of a "one-time" payment to essentially have lifetime access to what a writer is sharing on Substack? If the writer changes their mind later, oh well, you made the one time payment, but on the other hand if the writer sticks around the one-time payment made in advance means you can budget accordingly going forward. Both the writer and the contributor.
One thing I really don't care for is monthly payment installments - I think they are sort of insidious - they may make sense for some things, but lately they just seem to be traps of mammon.
~
Changing the subject, it pained me to watch my beloved Buffalo Bills lose to the Chiefs, but I had a feeling and there is always next season I reckon - plus....tis just a game.
~
Regardless, I'm willing to pledge support for your efforts long term - and here is the thing - even if there is a one time "founding" contribution done with diligence, doesn't mean there wont be further contributions out of respect for quality content. Seems like it could be a win-win.
~
Respectfully,
Ken
I like your idea, Ken. For Substack writers like myself to "make it," we probably need really big gifts or donations. That's what support these corrupt organizatiions - millionaires give these organizations huge checks. I just tried to change my "Founders" Level to $1500 so I might get some of those really big gifts. I can't tell if this change took place because I'm already a subscriber and I don't see my Suscriber levels as readers see them.
If I could get one $1500 gift a month - plus my $6/monthly ones and my $50 annual ones, I could make $40,000 a year, which is my goal from this business.
I thought of you when the Chiefs won. My sympathies! We're in the same boat with Bama falling short in the playoffs. Wait until next year!
Regional differences used to be a lot more pronounced than they are today, and great columnists from outside your own region could provide an interesting window into the culture of their city. I'm thinking specifically of Mike Royko. I grew up in the South, so although I enjoyed Grizzard, I really loved Chicago's Royko, because it was like reading some interesting travel writing about daily life in a foreign culture -- plus the man had a fantastic wit and an inimitable style that made his writing enjoyable for its own sake. Where I live today, my local "paper" is that godawful website you mentioned in your post, al.com, where every columnist writes in the exact same style and from the exact same perspective as any other "journalist" in California or New York, which is to say that you could replace them all with ChatGPT and nobody would notice.
I was also a big fan of Royko. I wonder if he would remain silent about these outrages if he was alive and still writing today. Also, H.L. Mencken.
That company that owns and operates al.com owns about 30 former good newspapers ... and has killed them all. Their few journalists are the worst.
All of these sites (I think) used to have Reader Comments. But the company did away with that free speech forum because too many readers were skewering the sorry journalism in the stories.
Also, the "letter to the editor" doesn't exist any more - nor the disagreeing "guest column" rebuttal. I know because I kept sending letters and guest op-eds to al.com ... and they never publish them.
Cutting Room Floor Text - 3 (I cut this because I thought it might seem like whining ... so I decided to restrict the whining to the Reader Comments) ....
If I wanted to try to get a full-time job at a traditional newspaper or magazine, no editor would hire me because the subject matter of most of my stories is strictly taboo or off-limits. Plus, like Sports Illustrated, most of these companies are laying off editorial staffers- even the woke “pack journalists” who are eager to produce the content that publishers demand.
When will all the woke journalists realize them parroting ‘the agenda’ MAKES THEM REDUNDANT!?
If 1000 writers all say the same untrue things then why have 1000? Twenty will do. Or even one AI that can write in different styles.
Great points!
SI committed harakiri with its grotesque redefinition of what a top, fit athletic body looks like. The Swimsuit soft porn edition was its biggest moneymaker, turned into a house of horrors. Add in the woke state of pretty much all athletics, kneeling to career criminals, replacing the US Flag with the LBGTQABCDEF... and BLM flags, garage door handles called nooses, Trump and conservative hating, celebrating men winning women's Olympic weightlifting, all of the cultural destruction of our society indoctrination through sport made more of us get outside ourselves than watch sports as spectators under mental assault. SI became just another plunger and needle for all of the mind poison being injected in society. Good riddance.
As for the rest of the news media industry, I too remember old newspapers, two paper towns, where there once was a diversity of opinion and spin on the news to choose from. I remember Denver being a two-paper town, the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post. The RMN was once considered the more conservative of the two, the DP was always a far-left rag. But when the RMN tacked further left its raison d'etre was gone, nobody wanted a DP-lite paper. And it folded, leaving Denver with its one far-left rag that reads as communistic as Pravda once did in the old Soviet Union. It's literally the same voice that once came from our nation's communist enemy. I know, because I also used to read Pravda, watch TASS and listen to Radio Moscow when I was growing up in Miami. I always wanted to hear the voice of my adversaries, unfiltered, I even read the CCP's offiical media outlets today.
And that's what happened to American's newspapers and journalism. They've tacked so far left that they are quite literally what Pravda, TASS and Radio Moscow used to be. And the free market for that is small. Which is why they demand censorship. They've killed themselves by transforming into Ministry of Propaganda outlets. And without totalitarianism that restricts, punishes voices that don't parrot government propaganda those outlets shrivel up and die. The Enemy of the People cannot survive free markets; they are purely tools of propaganda. May they all go the way of SI.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ministry-of-propaganda-and-public-enlightenment
I miss Jimmy Breslin and WFB's writing. Growing up in Boston, reading The Boston Globe and The Record American (now Boston Herald) was mandatory and mostly fun. We had some of the best sports writers in the country, and some would even call games on national TV.
My friend's dad was an editor at the Herald and he'd get us great seats for The Beanpot annual hockey tournament; local teams like BU and BC were often ranked in the top five in the country.
My GF's dad was a Boston beat cop and he scored us tickets to my first World Series game. YES, I saw Fisk hit THAT HR; many argue it was the greatest Series game ever played. Robin Williams' character tells Matt Damon's character all about it in, "Good Will Hunting"! Man, I miss those days. But, I miss actual journalism more!
Mr. Rice for whatever it's worth. In my opinion, what you're doing now is far more important. We need voices like yours now more than ever. As you have so eloquently pointed out, all of the mainstream media appears to be captured. We need rebels like you who refused to bow down to the powers that be, keep speaking The truth and it shall set us all free.. As the old saying goes, better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. I think you are lighting bonfires that will guide us out of this darkness. Keep up the good work bill. god bless you. Don't let these sorry bastards win
Thanks, Billyjoe. Comments like this always remind me I'm (probably) doing what I'm supposed to be doing with my working life.
Bill, If today's writing is anything like your future writing it is a gold mine for the rest of us.
Awwwww .... don't make me blush.
Agreed. Here and at many similar blogs that allow comments, I often feel more informed than even from the official article/essay. If for no other reason, than to be exposed to two or sometimes many more perspectives. Even the Bible quoter, the whacko peddling his favorite conspracy theories or the likely (sometimes blatantly obvious) shill for Deep State, Pharma, a foreign power, etc. may provide a perspective, even if the only "value" it provides is to show how irrelevant or simply untrue many assertions are.
I really could care less about anyone's weight or appearance - with a few glaringly noticeable exceptions (live and let live, as they say) - but let's be honest....celebrating fatness keeps people, complacent, apathetic, unhealthy, and therefore, the hospital coffers full. There's no money in keeping people well. Frog in the kettle...we're fine, everything's fine.
https://vistapointe.net/images/they-live-1.jpg
Frog in the kettle...
Apt phrase; thanks for that.
I don’t care about other bodies but I do care about someone telling me what I think and desire is wrong. Put a 100 lb overweight woman on a cover AS A SYMBOL OF BEAUTY when I know she isn’t one (for most of us) and it irritates me. I did see a street videographer interview young women. They were shown a picture of a very obese woman in a ‘sexy’ bikini, a cross between a string bikini and dominatrix wear and asked to describe her. ‘Beautiful, sensual, stunning’ were the words used. They adamantly declared her gorgeous. The woman was easily 200 pounds overweight. Massive flab rolls. The interviewer said to a few of the rounder girls ‘yes, you remind me of her’. Hahahaha. They were appalled of course. Because they don’t really believe she is beautiful.
I don't care much for the appearance of most people, either. 😒
I can also identify when Sports Illustrated sports mag competitor, ESPN The Magazine, jumped the shark. That was the special edition devoted to Global Warming! A sports magazine that spent 50 pages telling readers they had to worry about Climate Change.
I wonder what editors of that edition thought about the Buffalo bills postponing their playoff game because it was too cold and they had too much snow.
Really, when Disney bought ESPN that was game over as far as my affection for ESPN.
Real inflation is at work with this SI issue (where the company couldn't make a debt payment). It seems like there might be some labor issue where writers want higher salaries, which the owners must not be able to pay. Also, I know printing costs are going through the roof as are mailing costs ... and fewer people are paying for subscriptions and Pfizer can only buy so many ads for each edition.
It's expensive to produce a publication like SI, which probably doesn't want to pay to send its journalists and photographers all over the world to cover sporting events like it used to do.
Add it all up, and expect more publications to cease publication .... or cutback even more on staff - which is why we're also getting all these stories written by AI.
Snake eating own tail.
Scripts kill me, chatbots choke me, trolls delight me.
🎼 AI AI oh!
With a bot bot here, and a bot bot there...🎶
In my article, I noted that most big cities once had at leas two newspapers. This meant journalists were competing for big and important scoops (which would mean more readers for their newspapers). Of course, today, all the big journalism scoops are off limits and can't even be investigated or reported. There's no journalist who is going to "break" any story on dangerous vaccines or, my pet subject, "early spread." Nobody is going to break any story on election fraud or Jeff Epstein's VIP clients ... or that Joe Biden definitely has ever-worsening dementia.
I wonder if we still had real competition in journalism among the "mainstream" news organizations if some of these scoops/scandals would have already been exposed.
Unless you're a government sponsored media outlet in the great white north, expect to be persecuted, censored and arrested for trying to expose an alternative viewpoint... that's the problem here
Judging by its cover photo, SI stands for Self-Indulgent.
Look at the Cover picture, she’s not even smiling which means they’re not even trying (SI)
I worked at a Regional Bell Operating company in the 1990's. Once the Internet appeared in 1993, the future of print newspapers was clear. I remember striking up a conversation with another business professional on a flight in 1994. He understood the dynamics at play - digital provided a much cheaper cost structure for "printing" the newspapers and for selling/displaying the ads. We both acknowledged that all newspapers were "dead men walking" and likely would be for some time before it all collapsed.
Various ventures attempted to build locally focused digital news/entertainment outlets, but the economics simply didn't work. The cost of generating content exceeded the advertising revenue. Social media eventually became the replacement, although for the end user it's a much less enjoyable/rewarding experience.
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”
― John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Muller
A close second might be "It used to be thus, and it was better."
Went to school with the former editor of SI. He was in heaven there, made good money and got to play golf with titans like Palmer and Tiger. He got out just in time!
Our little local newspaper is about $33. Per month. Now one has to get it in the mail. Right. Mail means not morning, & lucky if same day. Plus on a big day it’s 8 pages, usually less. Who wants to pay for that. Too bad as local news is now lost to most of us.
The small-town local newspaper is very important ... so I'm pulling for brother Bobby to keep the Troy Messenger as good as possible.
Like in most news that we need and are looking for "it is spread all over the place." A little here. A little there. You practically have to give up your real life searching for it. Our local paper changed hands and the population is hysterical as the paper seemed to have jumped off a cliff so people feel deprived of their paper. It looks like my solution will be to see what is on Facebook and Instagram, and the local chat list. Then become my own reporter by driving/walking around town and talking to anyone and everyone I can!
Correct, what you are doing is more important than ever!
CONGRATULATIONS, BILL!!!!
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/covid-didnt-suddenly-become-deadly-april-2020
Thank you. I'm writing an article right now thanking Zero Hedge. This is a big deal for me.