It’s staggering, really it is.
What happens if we produce journalism and nobody reads it? This is not an existential worry lurking beyond the keyboard of every reporter and editor, but a growing problem of “never-newsers”: people who deliberately or accidentally avoid the news.
According to the recent Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s annual digital news report, about an average 32% of people regularly avoid the news, up from 29% in 2018. In the UK, news avoidance soared between 2017 and 2019 by 11 percentage points “mainly due to the intractable and polarising nature of Brexit”.
Both the UK and the US are enduring a prolonged period of highly abnormal political news owing to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. The ongoing effect, if one is to believe the report’s findings, is to douse interest in engaging with news sources at all.
Well, perhaps if the “news” wasn’t constant whining about Brexit and Trump? But what really gets me here is the complete lack of introspection. The Guardian is one of the most spiteful, nasty and downright vile papers on the planet. It routinely lies and misinforms. It’s columnists are in the thrall of the progressive orthodoxy such that they cannot recognise reality even if it gets up and bitch-slaps them across the face. They are the epitome of fake news. Given this, people aren’t interested in what they have to say – and I only read it in order to rip them to shreds for the purposes of light relief. There are other ways of getting hold of facts and people are using them.
So, I guess, the answer to the question is pretty simple. Start reporting honestly. Do some fact checking before spreading lies and misinformation. Stop labelling perfectly reasonable people as “far right” or racist or whatever. You know, actually behave like mature adults for once?
The only way I read the Guardian is when using my ancient tablet that runs Tor. Their opinion pieces are indeed off the wall krap – and they even managed to find fault in Trump’s saunter into North Korea today.
And Tor doesn’t allow those pleading requests to fund them.
I might add the Scotsman recently went to subscription and I really only pop in there for some light amusement. Tor defeats everything though it doesn’t allow me to see the comments, nor their adverts. No hassle.
Craig Murray has a very interesting recent article in which he shows documents as to how the Guardian now disseminates MI6 propaganda. I don’t agree with everything he writes but I do believe his sources are legitimate.
People don’t read the papers any more but it’s not that their output is dreadful, oh no, there must be a problem with the people.
Is it any wonder that 10 times more people watch Dad’s Army than News night?
How does that T-shirt read? “The Guardian, wrong about everything, all the time.”
The answer to their dilemma is a simple one; produce quality and people will want to read their newspaper. Produce partisan clickbait and very few will.