Sign of the Times...

The New York Times reports a drop of over 10% year on year in its primary revenue source, advertising on the web and in its newspaper.

The Times blames two things-- the downturn in the economy and the continuing shift of readers and advertisers to the web.

And of course two things came to my mind as well--

One, don't they have a website? They admitted as much when they included it as part of the ad revenue that's being lost. So they can't really blame the 'shift to the internet'; they ARE the internet. Their problem is that readers are shifting to sites OTHER than the NYT site.

Two, do they have any share of the blame for this shift?

Could it be that their content drives away readers, who then go to the web in search of something they like BETTER?

Sans doute, mon ami. The Times is driving away its audience, and the advertisers know it and are looking for that audience somewhere else.

As we have learned this week after Obama's candid slip in Billionaire's Row, America is not a great fan of the hard left view of the world. Obama revealed his contempt for the common man and for what that man holds dear, and Obama is being held to account for this contempt.

So, over a longer haul, is the New York Times. A long history of undermining the President of the United States in wartime with treasonous acts is not exactly meat and potatoes for the common man.

George Bernard Shaw once opined that the working class does not deserve to live, and that nothing would make him happier than if his generation of working class people died off and were not replaced. He led opinion during the heyday of English leftism, anti-religious intellectualism which spawned the Kim Philbys and Anthony Blunts-- the men who would betray their country, also at war, in acts of treasonous espionage which continued over decades.

One should not doubt that, if not quite to the level of wishing them extinction, nonetheless the left in this country holds the working class American in the same general contempt. They are only good for what they do; they have no inherent dignity or humanity. They're just too stupid and superstitious.

They're for being manipulated to gain their votes, and for taxing. That's all they're good for.