{"id":232,"date":"2006-09-07T11:13:08","date_gmt":"2006-09-07T16:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2006\/09\/07\/index-finger-index\/"},"modified":"2006-09-08T01:24:45","modified_gmt":"2006-09-08T06:24:45","slug":"index-finger-index","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/09\/index-finger-index\/","title":{"rendered":"Index finger index"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am reading the new biography ‘All Governments Lie’: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone<\/em> by Myra MacPherson. Mr. Stone worked for a few years at the famous experimental New York newspaper P.M.<\/em><\/p>\n

Reading again about the trendsetting daily of the late 1940s and early 1950s was coincident given the news of recent weeks that a few newspapers were going to put advertisements on their front pages.<\/p>\n

A momentary irony for the print news business: Civil liberties types — including libertarians, First-Amenders and assorted lefties (but not all of the left, who often fear dissent) — and historically acute political conservatives called throughout decades of the 20th century for advertising-free publications. They saw the power of retail marketing to influence news judgment. The Arkansas Gazette<\/em> won its two 1958 Pulitzers (for work in 1957) for standing up for school integration, not merely for the correctness of the position but to do so at the expense of an advertiser boycott, after all.<\/p>\n

P.M.<\/em> was run on revenue from subscriptions, not ads, to avoid such issues. That paper found ad-free also meant profit-free and folded in less than a decade. What’s left of this proposal but Consumer Reports<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Oh, Millions of blogs. We don’t even charge subscribers. Most don’t run ads and those that do are picking up coffee money, barely.<\/p>\n

In the age of the Internet, what will keep newspapers afloat seems to be clever uses of the Internet, where nearly all is free but for the ads along the sides or popping out at you one way or the other. Subscriptions be damned online, though my Demzette, The Wall Street Journal<\/em> and the opinion parts of The New York Times<\/em> do insist on a credit card. But advertising revenue is not nearly so robust in the ether so there’s been some belt-tightening and rumors of more.<\/p>\n

Thus, subscriptions are dropping, apparently in favor of Internet news output. Does that mean advertisers have more power to influence independent journalism now? The pundits don’t seem to look at this like that, as they did 50, 60 years ago.<\/p>\n

Then again, there’s this opinion in Slate<\/a>. The longtime Slate analyst Jack Shafer emphasizes that front page ads are nothing new. A few papers never stopped — Our Northwest Arkansas Times<\/em>, for example.<\/p>\n

Those commentators decrying front-page ads: On the Internet, all pages are front pages, no? -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am reading the new biography ‘All Governments Lie’: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone by Myra MacPherson. Mr. Stone worked for a few years at the famous experimental New York newspaper P.M. Reading again about the trendsetting daily of the late 1940s and early 1950s was coincident given the news […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-course-of-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":254,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/12\/stone-not-stoned\/","url_meta":{"origin":232,"position":0},"title":"Stone Not Stoned","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Just to be self-referential, to refer to something I've published elsewhere, here is my review of the new biography of iconoclast commentator I.F. Stone. (No, not self-reverential.) Reading other reviews is very interesting. Essentially all the majors come in already liking or hating Stone, and that colors their write-ups. At\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2679,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2011\/02\/stones-throw-from-campus\/","url_meta":{"origin":232,"position":1},"title":"Stone’s Throw from Campus","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2011 Ben S. Pollock Catherine Wallack, a University of Arkansas interior design professor, deserves praise for curating a comprehensive exhibit of furniture produced by the Fulbright family's wood business and designed by Edward Durell Stone. Wallack is credited with putting together the show, but University Relations leaves unsaid who's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Education, Coarsely"","block_context":{"text":"Education, Coarsely","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/education-coarsely\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":384,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/12\/stone-picnic\/","url_meta":{"origin":232,"position":2},"title":"Stone Picnic","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Fayetteville newspaper reported recently that a tombstone was found at a just-vacated rent house. The marker is of a woman who died two years ago. The rental management company phoned police. The Times' print edition treats us to a photo of the flat marker. Later in the week the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":223,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/08\/im-fine-really\/","url_meta":{"origin":232,"position":3},"title":"I’m Fine, Really","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Nearly nine months ago, a supervisor at my company, whom I barely knew, was killed in a head-on collision. Informally within the company we were told the other driver, a 47-year-old man, had a fatal heart attack then his vehicle crossed the center line into the vehicle of our co-worker.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1984,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/06\/run-down-for-runoff\/","url_meta":{"origin":232,"position":4},"title":"Run Down for Runoff","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"That's why we have the committee system.\" Let's nominate this as the quote of the spring 2010 primary campaign season. Dave Bisbee is executive of Benton County, Ark. He's seeking re-election. The field of candidates was narrowed in May, and the runoff for county judge is Tuesday the 8th. It's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":310,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/05\/more-elements-of-style\/","url_meta":{"origin":232,"position":5},"title":"More Elements of Style","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Some books are so indispensable that you own them, even in the Internet age. Some books are so valuable that if one is misplaced you'll replace it. This must have happened with The Elements of Style, which my generation called \"the Strunk and White\" for E.B. White, who in 1957\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}