Howie Kurtz: Newspapers flagging; Blogs rising.

Howie Kurtz has two components to his analysis of the news media in today's WaPo.

First, the inexorable fact that large newspaper chains and the big three broadcast networks are hemorrhaging circulation and viewers. As a result, reporters are being let go and, as Kurtz lets his bias show:

But the decline in the number of reporters, especially at newspapers, means less digging into the affairs of government and business.

Gee, Howie, what about digging into the takeover and destruction of our public school systems by AFTA and NEA? Or the murder of unborn children by a righteous horde of angry women? Or the asinine exemption of the academic world from accountability, manageability, and common sense? Would mentioning them get you by your managing political commissar [oops, I meant editor]?

Another indication of the bias of either Kurtz or the study, which Howie does not link:

The median prime-time audience for cable news was up 4 percent last year, driven mostly by growth at Fox News. But the study faults cable news for focusing mainly on a handful of breaking stories each day, sometimes creating "an odd hyperbole in which anchors endeavor to create a sense of urgency about small things."

Maybe the agitprop of the MSM exempt media drives them away? Not examined by this study or by Kurtz.

Howie segues to his set of paragraphs about bloggers. A picture accompanying the Kurtz column depicts the NY Times columnist who predictably looks like an insufferable dweeb. Kurtz fairly gives some bloggers contacted by the NYT hack some time, including one of my favorites, Marquette Warrior's Jim McAdams:

Eight days ago, says Milwaukee blogger Jim McAdams, New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro called him and was "pretty irate."

"Do you get your jollies out of this?" McAdams recalls Barbaro asking.

What McAdams did was to scoop Barbaro on his story about how Wal-Mart was sending tips and information to sympathetic bloggers as a way of getting its message out. Barbaro, who maintains he was not irate, says he was "disappointed" that McAdams and other bloggers would "post what it is I was reporting on" after he sent them e-mails seeking comment -- with a request that the e-mails not be publicized. The online chatter enabled the Wall Street Journal to publish a short piece the same day as the Times.

McAdams, who teaches political science at Marquette University, says he had no obligation to keep confidential the fact that a reporter had sent him an e-mail. "You're talking about a bunch of conservative, pro-business bloggers who are sympathetic to Wal-Mart," he says. "This isn't really news. Wal-Mart is simply doing with bloggers what flacks have been doing with broadcast and print media for decades." In his posting, McAdams listed all the e-mails he had gotten from Wal-Mart's PR firm, Edelman, saying he used some and ignored others.

Crazy Politico's Rantings had another comment to make and was quoted by Kurtz:

the story was "more negative" than he expected and "made it sound slightly dirty" for bloggers to use material from Wal-Mart.

As an NYT reader for over forty years, I know from experience that the prissy, menopausal, politically correct Grey Lady editorializes endlessly in its "news" section and editorially against diversity it dislikes and always makes new business methods seem "slightly dirty."

The NYT is against bloggers who are pro-business and who support traditional cultural values. Pure and simple. Don't look to the NYT for "fair and balanced" news.