Liberal Papers Dying?

The Blog | Eric Boehlert: Hugh Hewitt's Odd Logic | The Huffington Post:

"Writing this week in the Philadelphia Inquirer, blogger and radio host Hugh Hewitt again insisted the ongoing newspaper slump is a direct response from subscribers fed up with the liberal bias and who have walked away. (Damn that liberal sports section!) Granted, there are probably 15 or 16 more compelling reasons to explain the trend behind declining newspaper circulation. (Starting with the wild proliferation of news outlets accessible on the web for free.) But that doesn't stop conservatives from insisting that if big city newspaper weren't so liberal, than business wouldn't be so bad. Of course, if that theory were valid, the flip side would also be true--business must be booming for major market newspapers that proudly display their conservative pedigree, right? Guess again. Turns out those newspaper are in worse shape financially than the allegedly liberal ones.

Take the case of the Washington Times, the openly partisan D.C. daily owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church and who fancies himself the son of God. According to the conservative logic, circulation at the Times should be growing because the newspaper appeals to those disgruntled news consumers who, in the words of Hewitt, became 'disgusted with biased product.' Problem is somebody forgot to tell the circulation manager at the Times, because (surprise!), like so many major market dailies, The Times is hemorrhaging readers. Specifically, circulation for the Times' Sunday paper was down a whopping 10 percent, or 40,000 copies, in the last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations' latest FAS-FAX report. . ."