Peter, Your comments are apt. The level of mental rigor, grammar and logic displayed in not only the SMH but most print media is sub standard.
As for the SMH being the only intelligent Sydney paper I'm sure that comment is going to promote some contrary discussion.

The tabloid form of the once proud Sydney Morning Herald is a journalistic disaster. I expect that crocodile stories are on the way, to go alongside the inevitable on-going stories re weight loss diet revolutions.
Vale SMH

Fairfax..... a dead man ( or Woman ) walking.

The faster they hive off their old Rural Press division, the better it will be.

That way their metropolitan papers can wither and die . The regional papers will continue to exist because they don't carry most of the idology or politics of their city cousins.

The new "compact" SMH is a work in progress: hopefully it will change (for the better) over time. Convergence of the online and paper formats are inevitable, and yes, it is hard to find the letters. I note Fairfax has recently employed a hotshot US IT firm to work on their online presence. I also miss some of the journos who have left (though I still wish Sheehan retired). However the SMH remains the only intelligent paper in Sydney.

Peter,

I stopped reading the Sydney Morning Hysterical (SMH) more than 10 years ago - soon after I left university and saw how the real world works.

I have little sympathy for grown men who actually pay for it. Last I heard Ann Summers was still there and calling the whole world misogynist for not supporting Gillard. And they wonder why they are going broke?

It always amazes me how progressives equate 'progressiveness' with 'intelligence'. Maybe it comes from Leninism. Lenin, of course, thought Russia needed a small band of dedicated revolutionaries to lead the masses of peasants and workers into a communist utopia. This elite would by necessity come from the intelligentsia (like him).

Unfortunately, that is where many Leftists (including those at the SMH) stopped reading Russian history. But the story did continue for those of us that bothered. I'll give you a hint - it didn't end happily. There is also that inconvenient truth that the rest of us aren't actually illiterate peasants trapped by poverty and ignorance anymore. We have moved on a bit from the times when progressives were actually progressive. In fact Gillard has taken us back to pre-1983 at the very least.

If you feel my tone is a bit on the sharp side - it's meant to be. After the last few days of this government, to then have someone write that 'progressives' are somehow intelligent and by insinuation the rest of us are somehow not, is just the hight of conceit.

So if we don't read the Herald, what are people expected to read? The Guardian? NY Times? Just pick and choose?

Pity the media laws of Gillard didn't offer us much choice. It was Gillard's way, which seems to be "my way or the highway". And there could have been some kind of sensible regulation to curb a few of the worst media excesses. Once again, a disappointing government (Rudd and Gillard both) which have left us precious little after all the elation of "Kevin 07".

Let's hope Abbott et al. can offer us something worth keeping. This lot hasn't. Twelve years of politicking and back-stabbing.

There is a kind of vicious circle going on; as the proportion of men reading papers declines, more women are brought on board to write, and this in turn reduces the interest of the paper for men. That doesn't really concern me -- there are lots of alternatives to the Fairfax press -- except insofar as women in general may be more likely to toe the 'party line' and less keen to strike out and unearth new material on their own. We know that women are less likely to adopt extreme positions than men; the trouble is that sometimes extreme positions are the right ones to adopt.

I am a bit bemused by the suggestion that there is another worthwhile newspaper in Sydney other than the SMH, which aims at a serious readership. The only other Sydney rag is the Telegraph which is a very poor tabloid as far as I can see. So bad as Granny can be it is way better than the alternative. Now if we are talking "on line" media, that is whole different ballgame.

I agree. Of course there are national papers such as the Australian, and Melbourne papers such as The Age.

But if we want to know what is going on in Sydney with a range of issues such as these- where would you go but the Herald? That's the point!
I mean issues like:

- the need for better traffic flows around Sydney..and we have had several very bad mornings with journeys to work confounded by accidents in the Harbour Tunnel etc

- Sydney's tired public transport system, which hasn't changed that much since the 1930s apart from small branch lines in the Eastern Suburbs and similar. Important, but hardly servicing the newer populations of west and southwest Sydney

- the perennial delays in choosing a second airport. How many major cities are there with ONE airport?

- the "Daily Terror" says it is "for Sydney" but it was the SMH that exposed the messy dealings which ICAC has taken up.

PS what's a "hight" referred to above?

The old format is certainly superior for it was rapidly leading to the best format for it, unpublished. No evil empire is required (the Australian), the general incompetence and unreality of "Progressives" will suffice. Calling Herald readers thoughtful is a laugh, their population is obsessed with a destructive form or Status Competition ("no I'm the most Virtuous / Caring / Sensitive"); eventually the Boat People system was relaxed and they have drowned a 1000 plus (and rising, as warned).

Further as Herald readers work for the Government, Unis, Unions and other institutions and are richer than most Workers, how come they won't pay more to keep their paper going? How about a face price of $3?