The NYTimes phoned me last week to find
out why I canceled my subscription (more than a year ago.) I said it
boiled down to one word: misery. The front page of the Times deals
with death, destruction and misery. The front page of the Wall Street
Journal (which I subscribe to) is useful information and curious
stories. I'd consider re-subscribing to the Times if it promoted Ed
Rothstein, David Brooks and Virginia Postrel to senior editors and
put them on the front page.
As do most people who follow news, I
get most of my news from our Internet, the one we are using right
now.
What I want to point out is that
business news is radically different from mainstream news. We all
know the cliché “bad-news is good news.” In business, news
is “what is changing”. Reading business news leaves me feeling
up-beat, whether it is the Wall Street Journal or BusinessWeek.
Last week's BusinessWeek had a story about the challenge and
excitement about blogs for business, about Verizon getting into media
content as it changes phone lines to TV lines, how Fannie and Freddie
are thinking about becoming de-regulated, Airbus and Boeing competing
for India, ABC news streaming on the Internet and the question of
breaking-up GM (something most business people are thinking about.)
Business news is up beat. It suits me. Let the academics and lefty fundamentalists of the world spend their days being miserable, or wallowing in schadenfriod.