Jonathan Nicholas writes a column for our local metropolitan paper "The Oregonian". Normally I do not read his column, but a couple of days ago I did. It is one of his more substantive columns. Here is the column, and here is my response:
Normally I do not read your column, but I did today. I think you hit the nail on the head. This might be one of the problems with democracy, or maybe it is just the nature of people.
It is hard to tell, but I think "The Oregonian" has moved farther away from hard news and international news, and more towards the "USA Today" model, that is, all fluff and nonsense.
I susbscribed to "The Wall Street Journal" for a couple of years and I really enjoyed it. I canceled my subscription this year because I found I was not reading it. Either there was not enough time, or I did not have the energy. It takes energy to read serious articles. I suppose that is one reason "fluff" is so popular, it does not take much energy to read it.
I saw a copy of "The Columbian" (a suburban paper printed across the river in Vancouver, Washington) the other day and I was suprised to see that it seemed to be full of hard news and international news. I would not expect that sort of thing from a suburban paper. The "Hillsboro Argus" (our local suburban paper), for instance, does not seem to be bothered by that.
As for our foreign policy? Money talks, and it manages to buy the silence of many.
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