KILL THESE STORIES

posted by James Reel

    The Guardian has published yet another hand-wringing article on the death of the classical CD industry. Please, let’s stop this foolishness. Yes, the major labels—Sony, BMG, EMI, DG, Decca and a couple of others—went lemming on us and followed each other over the cliff of corporate stupidity. But that’s only a small part of the story. Hundreds of small labels, with good American distribution, are still issuing dozens of classical CDs every month, most of which are much more interesting and necessary than the slop the majors have been dumping onto the market for the past 10 to 15 years. Evidence? For starters, go here, here, here, here and here.
    And while I’m on the subject of non-stories, could the news outlets please stop devoting so much coverage to how much money various political candidates are raising? NPR tried to justify the obsession on a newscast this morning by explaining that fundraising is a barometer of a candidate’s relative political health. Well, in the first place, it isn’t. It’s a barometer of how much money a candidate can raise from fat-cat contributors, which is rather different from political health. Or it would be, if the news media didn’t take the lazy way out and parrot the numbers from the latest campaign finance statements instead of reporting on candidates' positions on actual issues of interest to the electorate. If news organizations insist on reporting on political fundraising, at least move that effort into the financial section, and stop pretending it’s real political coverage.