Andy Rooney: In Defense of Newspapers

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We will happily admit to having a soft-spot for Andy Rooney based on a great deal of Sunday night childhood exposure. However we are starting to suspect Rooney may still be living in the eighties based on his assessment of the newspaper industry. Last night in his usual segment on 60 Minutes Rooney offered up a sort of defense of the newspaper. Alas, all he really managed to do was demonstrate the sort of antiquated thinking that has got the industry in so much trouble these last few years. You see, based on Rooney’s assessment the newspaper industry’s biggest enemy is television news (he proceeds to give a number or reasons why newspapers are better, i.e., you can’t cut out TV News for later inspection — a problem one would argue, YouTube has handily eliminated). It’s a conclusion that may have been apt, say, ten and/or twenty years ago but is so much the lesser of two evils these days that one has to wonder if Rooney has yet to venture on to the Internet (watching him do so might actually make for a great segment, come to think of it).

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