We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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The Times , er, Independent, it is a-changin’ Today, we have heard the toll of the bell for the print edition of the Independent, a new-ish British newspaper founded in 1986 to fill the perceived gap between the sanctimonious Left-wing priggishness of the Guardian and the then-brash Times with, well, what appeared to be more sanctimonious Left-wing priggishness. Although it was mindful of the need to remain in profit to be independent, that rigour has meant that it has now decided to go online only from 26th March 2016, having been as Independent as any newspaper owned by a charitable former KGB officer. Its mini-Me version, the i newspaper, a thinned-down version, is being sold off, stc.
What use is a Lefty rag if you can’t even wipe anything with it*? A sigh of relief at competitors, or an unwelcome reminder that the end of the tunnel is the mountain (of debt)?
*Newspaper is great for making car windows really clear after a wash.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Good. I thought it was disgraceful that they took that name.
Opening a newspaper to sell into an already saturated left wing market?
Regional,
The context of the Independent opening is that it was a time when Mr Rupert Murdoch was going about to break the hold of the print unions on his newspapers, despite a prolonged campaign of socialist violence at his new Wapping plant just after the Independent set up, where his newspapers were printed on new presses at reduced cost and without union obstruction or, on occasion, downright censorship of refusal to print newspapers that carried stories that the Union disapproved of.
Bill Bryson had this to say:
Its changing faster than the climate!
The Independent’s online business model also seems to have a flaw. The Indy story that Runcie indirectly links to above – that children born after the year 2000 would grow up not knowing what snow looked like – was their most popular story, directly linked to far more often than others in the years since they wrote it, yet a few months ago they took it down. Weird business model, to withdraw your most popular page. 🙂
One lefty paper down. Let’s hope another lefty paper folds soon. Like, er… The Telegraph.
About the Independent I care not a jot.
The possibility that a similar fate awaits The Grauniad gives me a schadenboner.
JG,
*Ee-e-ewwww!!!!*
I knew the writing was finally on the wall for the KGB “Independent” when a rather progressive local Conservative Party councillor told me “Paul the Independent is not really different from the Guardian, it wants the state to control everything – I am not going to buy it any more”.
By definition a con only works till people work out it is a con.
Once people started to understand that the “Independent” was NOT really “Progressive on social issues, but in favour of a free market economy” (that its writers, from traditional Communist families and so on, hated freedom even whilst they pretended to love freedom) the days of the publication were numbered.
Hopefully people will now see through the con that is the “free market – roll-back-the-state” Economist magazine.
John Galt
The Guardian will not be allowed to fail. The pigs at that particular trough have already started framing the debate for public funding. They can see the writing on the wall and are preparing accordingly.
Yes and getting laughed out of the court of public opinion for it.
There is already one liberal media organisation sucking off the state tit and that is the BBC.
Dead tree press getting direct state funding? Never happen. The Grauniad can whine all they like, but when they run out of money they will go bust, just as the Independent has.
The Independent did use to be middle of the road when it launched, but it began to go downhill after Andrew Marr was it was made it’s editor. After he left it really galloped leftwards. When it launched it could have taken on the Times. but Murdoch saw that threat and launched a price war as well as modernising the Times.
As Rational Plan indicates it didn’t start off on the left. It tried to be much more middle ground. Take for instance the inclusion of the Alex cartoon strip. This is a Dilbert for bankers to laugh at themselves. It later moved to the Telegraph. I can’t imagine the Independent of today carrying such a strip or in fact any strip that mocked its own audience.