Brett Banter

I am reminded of an old Southern saying "if peaches were dumb, you'd be a cobbler" today. I am not sure why, but I think it has to do something with the state of the media -- both mainstream and "activist." I attended a forum last night on the coverage of political events. The bloggers of course patted themselves on the back for their "victories" in the campaigns and trashed daily newspapers as being out of touch. Of course, the newspaper people there responded that while they have less people covering campaigns now due to budget cuts, the coverage is better. The editor (who will go nameless because he is a friend and hates to see his name out there) stated that he went through stories from the "golden years" of newspapers and found them wanting. There was more of them, but it said nothing.

The kicker, though, was the bloggers asked how many people in the room (about 150) actually picked up a daily paper each day. He got a little flustered when more than half of the room raised their hands so he quickly asked how many people over age 25 read the paper. There were very few who raised their hands, and the blogging king smiled as if to prove his point. The underlying assumption is that internet news is now king.

But he forgot (or maybe deliberately didn't ask) how many people read his blog. I bet the amount would number in the single digits if not take less than a hand to tally.

So, if peaches were dumb...