Letters to the Editor
cestmoi123
Published Letters: 224 Editor's Choice: 8
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GG, because you're asking an irrelevant question
[Read the article: Bad stenographers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's sort of like asking McDonalds how their cheeseburgers are serving 19th century English literature.
The core question in assessing Time's coverage (or Salon's for that matter) is "does it sell ads?" If it does, it's doing its job. So, maybe I should clarify slightly: all media where the producer is _paid_ is done, at the core, for the money.
Your blog is the same: Salon took it on because it sells enough ads to justify your salary, given the demographics of your readers. If it didn't, it wouldn't, and you'd go back to publishing directly, where you solely get the upside from Google ad revenue if you attract readers.
Salon's a business, running the content that sells the most ads. Time's the same way. No difference.
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GG, a response
[Read the article: Bad stenographers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Do doctors treat their patients with the exclusive goal of maximizing their profits? Do lawyers give advice to their clients with the exclusive goal of increasing fees? Do psychologists try to keep their patients uncured as long as possible so as to ensure they keep paying?
Inccurate examples - in each of these cases, the customer is the patient/client. In the case of the media, the customer is the advertiser, the product is the reader, and the inputs used to manufacture the product are the content. Also, the above-mentioned entities are generally private, rather than publicly-held, so they can choose their goals. Publicly-held entities (like Time Warner and Salon) don't have that option - their management has a fiduciary responsibility to maximize enterprise value.
Do the human beings which run corporations ever heed any goals which conflict with profit, or are the Lex Luthor-like villians who are one-dimensional? Is it possible to have a for-profit entity and yet, at the same time, have other goals that have nothing to do with profit?
A publicly-held entity has a legal obligation to maximize the value of the enterprise within the bounds of the law. Any other consideration is entirely inappropriate. Certainly, management can make decisions that maximize long-term value at the expense of short-term value (i.e. give to charity because it looks good and raises the opinion of the company in the public's eye), but that's the limit of the options they have, if they're doing their job and carrying out their responsibilities appropriately.
And do you really know people in your life whose behavior can be explained in its entirety by such simplistic, one-sentence theories? Don't the people you encouter have more complex, conflicted and ambiguous motives than that?
Everyone has complex motives in their personal lives - management teams of public companies are legally and morally obliged to put those aside and focus on their obligation to the people they work for: maximize profit within the law. Salon's team did that when they hired you, and, if Klein is generating, on net, value for TWX shareholders, they're doing it too.
All I'm saying is that asking "is this true" isn't the right way to judge media coverage when done by for-profit, public entities. The correct question is "does this make money?"
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Holly - it's a matter of size
[Read the article: Bad stenographers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Do a poll of Time readers. Ask how many know about this whole controversy. Then ask how many care. Then, tune the poll by customer value to advertisers. Short answer: impact is near-zero, would be my guess. I certainly could be wrong, but I don't think so.
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Armagednoutahere
[Read the article: Bad stenographers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Salon is a niche product, and it focuses on that niche. Just as McDonalds doesn't try to sell pasta, Salon has chosen a market segment (delivering upper-income liberals to advertisers) where it felt it had less competition, and hence contracts for content that would attract the target demographic for which its advertisers are looking. This is no different than any other company choosing to specialize. Salon could certainly try to take on Fox News, but that's unlikely to be successful. So, Salon focuses (as the company states in its SEC filings) on "(1)providing original and provocative content on topics that the mainstream media overlook, and (2) filtering through the media chatter and clutter to help readers find the stories that matter."
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why not vote against him b/c of his church?
[Read the article: Mitt Romney's ominous verb]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why shouldn't people vote against him because of his church? Are you saying that people shouldn't vote against him b/c he's a Mormon, or that a candidate's religious beliefs should never be a reason to vote against him?
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@shannor
[Read the article: Airlines adopt WiFi. This is a good thing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Had I been your seatmate, I would have pulled down the window shade as soon as we took off - makes it harder to read the laptop screen.
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Could be very helpful, with good spin
[Read the article: The GOP's Iran option is off the table]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If the Republicans can pull it off, they can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Argument goes as follows:
We invaded Iraq. After that, the Libyans abandoned their nuke program, and Iran stopped theirs. So, invading Iraq stopped nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, since correlation always equals causation.
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The data seems less obvious than this
[Read the article: The agenda of our pro-war pundit class]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Question 3: 25% of those polled said Iraq (defined as Iraq+war)was the most important issue facing the country. That's clearly the highest (2x the economy), but not consensus by any means. Also, it's down substantially from late last year.
Question 78: Looking back, do you think the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, or should the U.S. have stayed out?
54% should have stayed out, 41% right thing.
A majority, but not an overwhelming majority.
Question 80: I don't think you're accurately summarizing the data. First of all, the question is about "large numbers of US troops," so it's not clear what the withdrawal answers mean (get them all out, get some out, etc.). Also, 51% do say that we should withdraw within one year or "now," but 45% are willing to stay at least one more year, so there's no clear support for "get out now." The 8% you cite is for the "as long as it takes," but there's also 6% for "longer than 5 years" and 7% for 2-5 years.
Bottom line, Iraq's important to the electorate, but the expectations, and the importance, at least from this poll, seem to be less overwhelming than you're implying.