Why Newspapers Are Plunging

            Across the country, big city daily newspapers are in financial trouble. And if you want to know one reason why, look no further than The Charlotte Observer of Charlotte, North Carolina. According to Wikipedia, “Circulation . . . has been declining for many years. The most recent period (Spring 2008) showed a two percent decline in circulation and a four percent decline in revenue compared [with] the prior year.”

            The Observer, like so many other papers, likes to inflict politically correct editorials on its readership. And many sensible readers, accordingly, have dropped their subscriptions. As all good political correctors, the editors of The Observer, have nothing but distain for the South and traditional Southern culture. That certainly isn’t a good way to win friends and influence people in a Southern state like North Carolina.

            Recently, however, at least at first glance, it seemed that an editorial in the paper was taking a different tack by calling on its readers to practice “Southern hospitality.” But the piece soon revealed that The Observer was as tactless as ever toward most of its readers. The piece said hospitality in the state was grossly inadequate toward—illegal aliens.

            And just what outrages have the bigoted North Carolinians inflicted on these poor and deserving lawbreakers? According to The Observer, the transgressions are as follows. The state does not allow illegals to have driver’s licenses, and it forces illegal alien kids to pay out-of-state tuition if they attend college in North Carolina. Of course this what American citizen kids from other states have to do, but that’s just their problem, evidently, as far as The Observer is concerned.

            Next the newspaper cites the inhospitality of illegals having to fear the police. But don’t American lawbreakers have the same fear? Should we be kinder to them too by relieving them of fear of arrest? Lastly the paper castigates North Carolinians for their “hostility” toward illegal aliens as expressed in “letters to the editor, . . . online comments [and] talk at the barbershop.” This, say The Observer pundits, is “hatred.”

            And what might be a source of this “hostility?” The editorial itself gives a good clue. It notes that “At least 80,000 Hispanics live in Charlotte, many illegally. The rapid influx has strained social services, health care providers, and schools.” Is it least conceivable that the benighted yokels might have a legitimate reason for anger with their tax money paying for people who shouldn’t be in this country—especially during a recession when almost all states and localities are having trouble making ends meet? Intoxicated with their hate hype, political correctors seldom can distinguish between appropriate outrage and genuine malice.

            The Observer, to say the least, has a strange notion of what constitutes hospitality. To most people it means people showing consideration and kindness to others, usually for a limited period of time. It also implies respect and gratitude from the recipients. No sane version of hospitality requires a host to keep offering it to people who respond by taking advantage of him, overstaying their welcome, and damaging the premises.

            These sorts of things are what many illegal aliens show the citizens of North Carolina, and it is a contempt The Observer obviously shares, as it attacks the character and motives of citizens for the benefit of those foreign lawbreakers. Papers like The Observer seem determined to follow this course, no matter what, seeing it as a mandate of their politically correct dogmas and creeds. As offended readers cancel subscriptions in droves, these papers eventually may face bankruptcy. A demise more well-deserved is hard to imagine.