Backbone Radio

Here come the new media

Slated on Backbone Radio, May 4 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver... 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

"A dying tribe" is what Denver Post business editor Al Lewis calls the business he's in, newspapers. This week, under a frozen-smile headline, the Post reported its weekend circulation dropped 15% in the past year, while that of the Rocky Mountain News dropped 11%. Grasping for straws, the story said visits to the two papers' jointly operated websites were up 22% in the same period. But a leading publisher told me that ads migrating online from his print edition surrender 90 cents from every previous dollar of revenue. Cold comfort.

As a lifelong lover of newspapers, and in recent years a Post columnist, I take no joy in this trend at all. It's real, though, and it looks irreversible. There's a concern, because TV can't match print in the comprehensive gathering and thoughtful reporting of news. Nor can web-based journalism and talk radio.

Yet the latter, the so-called new and alternative media, are driving big changes in the way Americans get their information and convert it to political energy. We're not "Citizen Kane" or "The Front Page," but this seems to be our moment. You're giving us a chance and we mean to seize it. Here we come.

** This Sunday, May 4, I'll report on time spent in the past week hanging out with Bill Bennett and John Stossel, and I'll recap the hot issues in Colorado as the legislature ends and the ballot issues gear up.

** Michael Ward, a British scholar and expert on C. S. Lewis, will spend an hour with us discussing his new book "Planet Narnia" and the forthcoming film "Prince Caspian."

** Plus Colorado College student Chris Robinson on his ordeal with the campus thought police... terrorism expert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross with a war report... and political writer Mike Littwin from the Democratic campaign trail.

Backbone Radio has no illusions of ever replacing the Sunday paper. You can't wrap fish in us or spank the dog with us. Or start a fire with us, unless that means lighting a match under citizens. We're tickled, though, to be part of what's happening now, and all because of you.

Yours for America the Good, JOHN ANDREWS

Change we can't believe in

Slated on Backbone Radio, April 27 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver... 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

The returns are coming in. Pennsylvania didn't believe Obama is the future. Neither did Ohio and Texas. Neither do you and I. One reason most Americans can't believe in him and his version of change -- socialism with a Harvard accent or a Dixie drawl depending on the day -- is that we're realizing he and the people closest to him don't believe in us. Wright the bigot, Ayers the terrorist, and Michele the unproud, all play supporting roles to Mr. Change himself, the worldly wise psychoanalyst of blue-collar bitterness and clinging religious faith. Thanks but no thanks, Barack. If that's a preview of your inspirational leadership in the White House, we'll pass.

But the bind for Democrats, as Bill Moloney and Ken Davenport pointed out this week on our Backbone blog, is that their whacked-out delegate process may already have trapped the party into nominating Sen. Obama after a stormy convention in Denver this summer, even as we the people -- Republicans and Reagan Democrats alike -- increasingly see through him and want none of the guy.

Backbone Radio will catch you up on all of it this Sunday, another lively show with fresh topics and great guests you won't want to miss. Matt Dunn and Krista Kafer, our youth brigade, along with me, Mr. Unchanging himself, will be there making it happen. We hope you'll be there too.

** Some say McCain puts even California in play. We'll ask Joseph C. Phillips, our man in Hollywood, and Rep. Chuck Devore, Claremont's man in the State Assembly.

** As for the myth of Obama as today's JFK, a leader the whole world can follow, we'll get a reality check from James Piereson, author of the new book on Kennedy and Camelot, and Don Eberly, with his visionary book about global civil society. (What's that? Tune in and learn.)

** Plus Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Mike Ramirez, who also runs the outspoken and right-thinking editorial page at Investor's Business Daily.

Whatta show. Whatta year. Whatta country. What better way to spend your Sunday evening?

Yours for believable change, JOHN ANDREWS

BOOKS YOU WILL VALUE *  LANDMARKS IN THE STORM