Another daily Alabama newspaper is making changes. There's a new look to The Huntsville Times. Unlike the Star in Anniston, the Times isn't going tabloid one day a week, but they are making design changes to emphasise the only franchise newspapers really have left: local news. Read about it here. No secret that The Times and virtually every other paper in America has been slammed by the recession and the net. The race is on to see which big American city will be the first to go without a daily paper.
Well!
ReplyDeleteIt's about damn time!
I don't know how many times I have ever griped, moaned and complained about the seemingly incessant, wholly unnecessary and inordinate focus upon national & international news in a freakin' local paper!
The same crap applies to "local" news. STOP telling us about "X, Y and Z" UNLESS it has a LOCAL tie-in! Or, MAKE it applicable! Idiots and damnfools, all... because they can't or don't!
Case in point: I recently, by chance, spoke with a man whom was leasing land to others to grow augula. I happened to note the irrigation system, and stopped at a nearby creek where repair work was being done to the guard rails. Turned out, the man on the county crew owned the land, and told me so. Then, immediately afterwards, I went and bought a gallon of home-grown strawberries ($12.50) at a farm not too far from there. In the few minutes after I had arrived, at least five other cars - each with at least two people, and in some cases more - arrived to purchase. Some had Tennessee tags.
THAT is economic news at the most local level. And, it was a BIG farming operation. But did I read about it, or hear it from "news"? Hell no! I had to quite LITERALLY follow the signs to their place.
I mean, what would it be like to read about the G8 summit in the Sand Mountain Reporter? Come on! Those folks don't care about that stuff!
They're (HTimes) suffering because they think they can do something they were NEVER meant to do! I wish Newhouse News (their corporate owner, which also owns the B'ham News and Mobile Press-Register) would dump them. THEN! They would probably get a clue! (This may be a good sign - that "clue" - after all.)They could have (and should have) been up in the former mayor's (Loretta Spencer) business, and the whole stinkin' city council (including the loathsome Glen Watson), but they don't follow the police beat, they don't dig and research issues, and more. They are (The Huntsville Times) as sorry an excuse for a local paper that purports to serves an intelligent community (Huntsville has Alabama's highest education level, per capita) as I have ever seen.
There are LITERALLY (there's your "Literal Watch," Tim) a host of other issues upon which they could've (and probably should have) been working, and following, investigating, breaking news, etc., but... NO!
And, FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD! Stop writing at the 4th grade level!Often, it (the paper) would have been more useful in the smallest room of the house, were it perforated and on a roll.