Disintegration of the old-line newspaper business

Picture credit: http://www.newsday.com
The indispensible PoliPundit points us to one of many stories of circulation fraud plaguing the old-line newspaper business.

Put simply, the traditional newspaper business is disintegrating faster than a six dollar suit. Newsday, among others, reportedly engaged in a massive fabrication of sales numbers. The bogus circulation game is simple: pump up distribution to keep ad revenues flowing.

Furthermore, the questionable practices extend to a bevy of major dailies. And, even without questioning their circulation numbers, it looks like the big boys have been heavily subsidizing sales by offering discounts. The accompanying chart, also courtesy of Newsday, tells the discounting story.

Surprise, surprise - the list of the ten most discounted newspapers reads like a Who's Who of MSM/DNC shills. Here are the chart's top ten most heavily discounted papers... along with some of their noteworthy personalities:

Washington Post - Richard Cohen (or, as I like to call him, "The Goalpost Shifter")

Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Tom Teepen ("Dense and intellectually bankrupt is no way to go through life, son")

Boston Globe - Thomas Oliphant ("Nickname: The human 'factuum' - a consistent lack of any factual basis to his arguments")

San Francisco Chronicle - the city that only syndicates!

Houston Chronicle - Cragg Hines ("Puts the 'Cragg' in 'Craggpot!")

Los Angeles Times - Ron Brownstein ("The least-read columnist in the largest city in America!")

Philadelphia Inquirer - Trudy Rubin ("If there's a Pulitzer Prize for extruding DNC talking points like a Pez dispenser, she's a lock!")

New York Times - Maureen Dowd ("Chimpy McBushitler is responsible for all of America's troubles... and my whiney voice!")

Newark Star-Ledger - Deborah Jerome-Cohen ("We're evil, empire-building occupiers... with hearts of gold!")

Minneapolis Star Tribune - Nick Coleman ("Trying to control envy... trying... trying... failing... YOU POWERLINERS STINK LIKE... SICK... uhm... WEASELS!")

Keep up the great work, MSM/DNC op-ed columnists! From all appearances, you're accelerating the destruction of print media, almost singlehandedly. In this case, intellectual bankruptcy is beginning to translate to financial bankruptcy.

Let's see. If I'm a publisher of one of these papers, what lessons can I learn from this? DNC shills... poor circulation. Hmmm. What can I learn? Constant recitation of DNC talking points equals crappy circulation. What... could... I... change if I'm publishing the paper? Hmmm. I'm not coming up with anything. Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?