How bad is your local paper?

[Archae]

Our local paper, The Sheboygan Press, has a conservative lean to it, but that isn't enough for the Freeper-types.
Comments on articles, editorials, LTTE, etc, can be added at the bottom.
And most are quite far-right.

In fact, the paper has had a nickname for a long time, as a result.
"Sheerboredom Depressed."

http://www.sheboygan-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

[ChoralScholar]

1. Not too bad.

The Harrison Daily Times is owned by a larger corporation that owns several papers in Arkansas and Missouri.



The editors of the HDT are actually a bit left of center - it's kind of nice.

http://www.harrisondailytimes.com

[jobycom]

2. Austin American Statesman.

At one time it was a damn good local paper, but a decade or so ago it was bought by Cox (no, not Fox, it really is Cox), and now it's a pander rag for the Republicans. Austin is a liberal town with the most fascist media I've ever seen.

[NoPasaran]

29. When was the Slag ever a good paper?

I remember it sucking back in the late 70s---although then-editor Ray Marrioti's drunken screeds at least made for some entertainment.

[Cabcere]

3. From a technical standpoint...it sucks.

Typos all over the place, frequently incorrect captions...and oh boy, was my mom (a trained journalist) pissed when they started running ADS on the FRONT PAGE. Honestly, I could've done a better job editing it when I was ten years old, and I certainly could now. My Academic Challenge coach from high school calls it the "News Loser" (it's really the "News Leader"), but we keep our subscription because the other semi-local newspaper is even worse.

Politically...well, I'm from one of the reddest parts of a red state, so as you might imagine, the slant is fairly conservative, although I will say they generally do an OK job with the news. The opinion page gets lots of deranged freepers (no, really, I honestly think these people have something seriously wrong upstairs) writing in about how Bush is God and must not be questioned, EVER...but the editorial staff has been known to swing to the left a bit more lately, and in our last gubernatorial race they slammed Jerry Kilgore (the Republican candidate) pretty hard. :shrug: So, I don't know...maybe things are getting better?

Edited because apparently the News Loser Leader's grammatical sensibilities (or lack thereof) are invading my brain. :silly:

[ripken08]

4. I dont do the newspaper really.

I know its sad, but if I am going to read any newspaper, it is the Washington Post. So I simply read the School paper, (Daily Cardinal), and consult Washingtonpost.com.

[misanthrope]

5. Terrible...

...The journalistic standards are lax and the editorial board is right wing. Ask anyone who has had the misfortune to read the Mobile Press-Register on a daily basis.

The "voice of God" editorial columns--the unattributed ones that come from "the editorial staff"--consistently and vociferously lean so far right they're bent to the ground. Just recently, they ranted about the Plame investigation being a pointless and petty partisan witch hunt and that Scooter Libby was a poor victim of the national Dems.

The paper has a long record as a propaganda device used to keep the citizens compliant and subservient. For instance, it openly lobbied for decades to keep the worst school system in Alabama deplorable to favor the parochial schools.

The list of grievous affrontery from the rag is far, far too lengthy to delve into here.

Unfortunately, the newspaper is an accurate depiction of the local populace and culture.

[Berry Cool]

25. LOL, that sounds like the Lake County News-Herald in Ohio.

People in northeast Ohio complain about how conservative The Plain Dealer is, or about Kevin O'Brien's laughable conservative editorials, but the Pee Dee has nothing on the Snooze-Herald. I found a piece of it lying around in a restaurant a month or so ago and picked it up just to read for laughs. It was like stepping through the looking glass. There was not a single editorial in the whole thing that did not qualify as conservative right-wing tripe. And yes, one of them was by some national columnist--can't recall which one now--whining about how Scooter should be let go, and Valerie Plame wasn't covert, and this was all a trumped-up piece of nonsense, and the Wilsons were just a couple of DC cocktail-circuit party darlings who were milking this whole thing to death to increase their ability to get on Washington's liberal society A-list.

Letters to the editor? Missives praising the war and denouncing anyone who dares to question Our Noble Pretzeldent outnumber voices of reason three to one.

You get the drift.

[Clark2008]

26. Want to know why?

Most local reporters are paid worse than starting teachers.

The best leave the profession.

[misanthrope]

28. Well, the best here...

...go on to other markets as quickly as they can. This place is a dead end.

I would also disagree with your general summation about "the best" journalists leaving the profession. They may shift jobs or mediums but a great deal of them remain journalists and writers.

[kath]

6. The Daily Oklahoman, AKA The Daily Disappointment or The Jokelahoman. Named "the worst newspaper in

America" by the Columbia Journalism Review a few years back: http://archives.cjr.org/year/99/1/worst.asp

Even includes a lovely prayer on the front page each day!

[misanthrope]

12. LOL! That's now run by...

...one of the guys from the Mobile Press-Register, Stan Tiner. I guess y'all can't catch a break.

Now you know of what I posted in this thread...

[kath]

14. Actually, IIRC, I'm pretty sure that Tiner only lasted 8 or 9 months.

(could be wrong, though. I can't bear to read the thing.)

[misanthrope]

22. Really? I know he left Mobile for that job...

...seven or so years ago and we were left with milquetoast Mike Marshall at the editor's desk. He was rewarded for a lifetime of compliance and refusal to rock any boats, just what you want in a journalist.

One of the paper's other top dogs, Quinn Hillyer, recently left here to take a job with right wing mouthpiece The American Spectator and has been appearing on Glenn Beck's show of late.

[kath]

24. I did remember correctly:

A few months after the Columbia Journalism Review named the Daily Oklahoman to be The Worst Newspaper in America, the paper was looking to restore its credibility. It hired a new executive editor, Stan Tiner, who had a mandate to come in and restore the paper's credibility as an accurate report of news and not the one-sided propaganda of Oklahoma's moneyed interests and the state GOP.


Tiner was fired eight months later, in December 1999, and was replaced by Sue Hale, one of Gaylord family's longest-serving cronies. One of Tiner's last acts as editor was to see the Oklahoman run the first of a planned three-part series on the Karen Silkwood saga.
Silkwood worked for a nuclear plant owned by Oklahoma-based Kerr-McGee Corp., which, she charged, had committed safety and security violations. She was killed in a car crash in 1974, reportedly on her way to meet with a journalist. The first article recounts the 1979 federal trial in which Kerr-McGee was found liable for contaminating Silkwood with plutonium.

Mere days later, Tiner was fired, and then:

Ten days after the story ran, an Oklahoman editorial praised Kerr-McGee for its contributions to the state and its citizens.


Tiner, who said the loss of his job was "devastating" but refused to comment, went back to his native Alabama. In May 2000, he took the executive editor position of the Biloxi, MS, Sun-Herald.
On Monday, the Sun-Herald shared the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Stan Tiner, whom the Gaylords fired, just won the Pulitzer Prize. The Oklahoman has not won a Pulitzer Prize since 1939, when Charles G. Werner won for Editorial Cartooning. The paper has not even had a finalist for a prize since then. Lest you think that Biloxi and New Orleans had a shoo-in because of Katrina, note that the Oklahoman did not win any Pulitzers in 1996 for its coverage of the Murrah Building bombing that happened 11 years ago tomorrow. Charles Porter won the prize for Spot News Photography in 1996 for his photographs of that day, including of the late Miss Baylee Almon at the site, and Julia Prodis of the AP was nominated for the Feature Writing prize in 1997 about that photograph. No one from the Oklahoman was even a finalist, although Ed Kelley, the editor whom Tiner replaced, did get to be on the jury for the "Breaking News" prize in 1998, awarded to the Los Angeles Times.


Is it any wonder the state keeps electing Inhofe and Coburn?

http://friends.macjournals.com/mattd/2006/04/18


Another article:
Brief Tenure, Sudden Exit
After eight months as executive editor of the Daily Oklahoman, Stan Tiner is out of a job.
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=1030

There's also an article in the NYT archives about his abrupt departure:
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10F1EFF355E0C748DDDA80894D8404482&showabstract=1

And a great snarky article, from shortly after Tiner's arrival, that includes these gems:

From the looks of things, Tiner has issued two commands: "Make this paper look less like a throwback to the 1950s," and "Get this paper's perceived politics out of the 1850s."

The cosmetic changes were easy enough. Getting anything resembling progress out of Patrick B. McGuigan, the modern-day Know-Nothing who rules the Editorial page, would be substantially more difficult. As far as the "vast right-wing conspiracy" goes, McGuigan is pretty much half-vast at best, but the conspiracy couldn't have asked for a more consistent mouthpiece — his work over the years has been one constant harangue against the horrid government which does so many things to restrict people's freedom and yet somehow can't be bothered to persecute liberals or homosexuals, or to pick up the tab for private-school tuition for McGuigan's children. Suddenly McGuigan is now faced with something called the Opinion Board of Contributors, which includes such unlikely (for the Oklahoman, anyway) members as a rep from the Oklahoma City Public Schools Foundation and an actual peace activist, and which will be represented on an Op-Ed page, something Eddie Gaylord would have permitted only over his dead body.

http://www.dustbury.com/vent/vent157.html


When hubby and I came out here for his second job interview (the one where you bring the spousal unit along to see the area) in 1992 there was a copy of the Daily Disappointment in our hotel room. We looked through it searching in vain for any NEWS (at least anything of a national or international nature) and figured that a section of it must be missing. Sadly, we later realized that that's all there was! And we just *loved* the Prayer of the Day on the front page...


Aww, ain't it great living in Red State Hell?

[Patsy Stone]

7. The Miami Herald

has it's moments. It all depends who's in charge over there.

[Cabcere]

10. Possibly a stupid question, but...

does Dave Barry still do humor columns for the Herald? :shrug: I seem to remember hearing something about how he was considering taking a break or something, but it was a while ago and I haven't really been keeping up with it, to be honest. :blush: I've always liked his style - in fact, I started reading some of his humor books when I was about six or seven, lol, which probably explains a lot about me. :P

[Patsy Stone]

17. Still here

http://www.miamiherald.com/283/story/32035.html

That's last weeks, so I guess there will be a new one tomorrow. Also, check out http://www.davebarry.com

Here's a fun link to his blog. http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/

I've met him a few times, at The Herald Hunt (a sort of life-size scavenger hunt), which he hosts every year. He's very cool in person, too.

Dave and Carl Hiaasen are definitely bright spots in The Herald's mixed history.

[Cabcere]

21. Cool!

Thanks for the links - and it's really neat that you've gotten to meet him, as well. :hi:

[alarimer]

8. the Caller Times sucks

also known as the Smaller Times or the Caller Slime. Never saw a development project (no matter how hare-brained it was) that they were not in favor of. Pro-business, pro-development, no investigative arm at all (and believe me, in this local government there is a LOT to investigate).

[UnseenUndergrad]

9. A real dinosaur

My home-city major publication, The Winnipeg Free Press, has one really hard right-wing columnist; one Tom Oleson. There are also a couple really pro-israel staff members and 1 or two fiscal conservatives.

On the other hand, some columnists can be really nice, especially those who take an interest or are connected to the cities First Nations population.

[durtee librul]

11. Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, macomb Daily

They all suck. Just remember these were the ones that booted their unions with no bennies......

If you want to waste your money on GWB type journalism (typos, misspelled words, wrong captions,) then any of these 3 will fit your requirements....and don't let the fact that Mitch Albom 'writes' for them fool ya one little itty bitty bit. He sucks too.

Usually I read the USA Today on a daily basis and you can take it to the bank, that a byline I read on Monday or Tuesday shows up on Friday as BREAKING NEWS on the free press.....sad and pathetic. Course the web site address is www.freep.com so I guess that sums it all up quite nice.

The other paper I 'read' is the Kenosha (WI) news, otherwise called the Kenosha Snooze.

[Monkeyman]

13. Well all I can say is Chicago Tribune and Sun Times lean right

[Malikshah]

15. Sun-Sentinel here... The LTTE are enough to make one run for the hills

WWII and Korea Vets stating things like ... bomb Iraq to oblivion if one more soldier dies...
Fellating Bush et al (inclusive of Jeb)

Generally being mind-numbingly stupid in its editorializing.

[Archae]

16. Our LTTE can get bad.

We have a mayor here in Sheboygan. Juan Perez, who's earned the nickname "King Perez."

And his supporters are nearly as bad as the Bushies.

Letters: Leaders of mayoral recall shouldn't be running for council positions

I cannot believe Dimple Adams and Barb Tuszynski have the nerve to run for the Common Council.

This past summer, they were the leaders of the recall against our mayor.

Barb Tuszynski was the spokesperson and Dimple Adams was and is still the registered treasurer of the group.

For 60 days they tried to get people to sign their petition to recall Mayor Juan Perez.

http://www.sheboygan-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070323/SHE0601/703230437/1111/SHEopinion

[Jamastiene]

18. The Editors themselves seem to range anywhere from liberal to

moderate to conservative depending on the issue, but the local populace is another animal altogether.

One example wants stories to be "fair and balanced" like "Fox News" and talks about the "unfairness of the Democrat Party." :eyes:

Here is a link to that one:
http://www.yourdailyjournal.com/articles/2007/03/25/news/editorials/opeds03.txt


They only have 4 up right now. Some are not political.

Overall, most of us call it the Daily Urinal because its worthy of lining a bird cage or paper training puppies. It's not worth the $.50 price. It was well worth the $.35 it was until a few years ago, but definitely not worth the $.50.

[Archae]

19. The other two papers around here...

Are the Green Bay Press-Gazette and the Milwaukee Journal.

The Press-Gazette doesn't get read too much, and the Journal has the nickname, "The Milwaukee Urinal." :-)

And of course, there are dispensers for McPaper all over the place.

[Rhythm]

20. Ours is owned by the family of the guy who ran against Robert Byrd

The op/ed section is always skewed, and there seems to always be a letter to the editor from the local fundie crank preacher, admonishing us that f we don't turn from our sinful Democratic ways, we're gonna burn.

Personally, i'd rather just stick to the university paper...

[Archae]

23. We used to have a guy like that.

Years ago.
(I think he finally was admitted to the Pokey Oaks nursing home.) ;-)

But he was critical of EVERYTHING "sinful."
He even called Christian rock "blasphemy."
Said that only the music from church was "Godly." :crazy:

[H2O Man]

27. There are five "local" papers here.

The two smallest ones are made of the "Mayberry, RFD" reporting.

The next one is very conservative.

The two largest ones are actually fairly progressive.

All five print my LTTE without editing.

[blogslut]

30. The Decline of the Hometown Newspaper

Is a very sad tale. Ours began it's descent when the wealthy family that owned it sold it to some corporation. That corporation recently sold it to another corporation. The saddest part of all is this was once a Pulitzer-Prize winning paper - not bad for a no-name rag in the middle of West Texas.

Today, I could count the stories written by local reporters on one hand.

It breaks my heart.

[misanthrope]

32. There are major media changes afoot...

...that are altering the newspaper business immensely. Readership is plummeting around the country. I've heard the most dire forecasts predict that in a decade, physical papers will cease to exist. Can't say I completely buy that but I do believe circulation will continue to wane as more people get their news from the Web.

Should the expense of producing a paper fall out of balance with what owners are able to make from it, sure it'll disappear but we must remember producing a newspaper hasn't always been as expensive as it is now. I think in a lot of cases, local papers will become more condensed and less flashy, but will still exist in a form.

The immediacy and convenience of the Web are daunting but I actually think the root of the problem is that media like television have instilled an aversion to literacy among us. People just don't seem to love reading in the way they once did.

[blogslut]

33. And on that same note

Because of computers and publishing software, we have two moderately successful free weekly papers. I do think the future of print lies in niche markets.

[efhmc]

42. We have a hometown paper run b y a right-wing fundamentalist.

It once included an insert of dead fetuses. i did not see but heard about it. Yes, we are in Central Texas.

[rainbow4321]

31. Dallas Morning News

They'd back Delay and Cunningham if the crooks were to run for another office...all because of the "R" behind their names.

They're real quick to report how horrible things are under TX/US repuke regimes between election days but once November of any election year rolls around they endorse repukes every step of the way.

You'd never know that Dallas County is blue by reading the DMN. Guess that is why they have a history declining circulation stats.

[Skittles]

44. Dallas Whoring News

you are correct - it sucks

[Sparkly]

34. Baltimore Sun -- pretty good!! WaPo, not so much... nt

[The Straight Story]

35. Here is a source with links to local papers by state (and tv news stations/college papers)

http://www.usnpl.com

[Oeditpus Rex]

36. Ripping the local paper is like booing the umpire

Both are time-honored traditions done by people who don't know the why, only the what.

As a veteran small-town reporter and editor, I begrudge no one their right to take shots at the local rag, as long as they're fair shots, and fairness begins with knowing whom to aim at.

There are virtually no independent newspapers left in the U.S.; even the 5,000-circulation dailies, weeklies and semi-weeklies have been gobbled up by the maw of corporate media, which cares little about journalism and much about profits. Most of the nation's dailies from mid-size up enjoy profit margins of at least 15 percent, with 20 percent not at all uncommon, while most other businesses run from five to 10 percent. Newspapers maintain these profits primarily in two ways: Minimizing editorial space ("editorial" in newsroom-speak means anything that isn't advertising) and cutting staffs to the bone while paying them damned little to begin with.

As sports editor and then city editor — no. 2 in the newsroom — of a small daily from 1997-2003, the most I made was $28,000. I was not permitted overtime, yet I rarely worked a week of less than 50 hours as city editor or less than 60 as sports editor. The job demanded it — or, my commitment to doing the job properly did. From what I've seen, most journalists have the same attitude about their work, but the low pay and ridiculous hours can really weigh on you. (I'm having dinner later today with a friend and former co-worker who's now editor of a business magazine in the Sacramento area, yet she freelances for a local weekly paper to supplement her income.)

Most people go into journalism with a dream of breaking The Big Story, which is connected to a desire to make things better for the masses through information. Few have a political agenda; those who do don't last very long. But they all work for people whose money lust dictates they not offend anyone, particularly business owners, lest they lose advertising revenue. But a newspaper that isn't pissing off some people isn't doing its job. As the Louisville (Ky.) Journal's credo once said, "The purpose of a good newspaper is to report the news and raise hell." But few papers even report hell anymore, much less raise it. Truth is often the first casualty of greed.

No one knows better than editors and reporters the differences between what their newspapers are and what they should be, and no one wishes more that those differences didn't exist. But if they want to keep their jobs, they eat the shit they're fed every day, often because they can't imagine doing anything else.

[spanone]

37. Gannett newspaper....PATHETIC. Grossly incompetent. Entertainment trumps news.

other than that.....

[benld74]

38. The Post Dispatch isn't what it used to be

Can suprise you sometimes both ways int their editorials,but they probably run right down the middle of the road. My main gripe is their national sports, and national news. Both are verbatim from the larger news outlets and the national news is 2-3 days old!

[Blue_In_AK]

39. The Anchorage Daily News

is pretty well-balanced, I think. They publish national columns by everyone from Cal Thomas to Paul Krugman (and Molly Ivins, RIP). The local editorials usually lean left.

Here is a link to local columnist Beth Bragg's excellent comment this morning on one of Alaska's latest war casualties.

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/anchorage/beth_bragg/story/8738810p-8640491c.html

Letters to the editor are all over the map, but a lot of people are fed up with Bushco.

[Jax]

40. I now call them "The Seattle Slimes"

instead of the Times. The owners, the Blethen boys want that inheritance tax repealed at any and all cost

and have not hesitated to use their paper and endorsements to get that tax repealed. They like their re-thug

candidates that will promise to repeal that tax and they play to them in their hard news and op/eds now.

I subscribe weekly to the Seattle P-I.

[MountainLaurel]

41. Bad

Its motto is "What Maine Reads." My husband says that if that is what Maine reads, we're in trouble. The quality of the writing is poor, their picks of what constitutes news is intriguing to say the least.

But at least it isn't my hometown paper in WV, which has a weekly section dedicated to promoting the supremacy of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. I'm paraphrasing, but that's really what it says.

[Tsiyu]

43. I feel pretty lucky

My "local" is owned by Lakeway Publishers. I worked as a special promotions consultant for one of their other papers a long time ago and had a terrible experience as that one was owned partially by a private party, but even then the editor was very progressive as were most of the writers. The sales dept. just sucked.

Our local is pretty cool. I met the editor (I think he's still around) once and he practically begged me to write some LTTE. They print all opinions and I rarely find any typos.


They also run Weldon Payne and he is a treasure.

This week's column is "Forget Al. What About all those scientists?" A snippet:

"Personally, I'm tired of hearing jesters malign Gore for trying to get our attention. He is far from alone in seeing disaster approaching that could make Katrina look like a spring shower. Do we care? Or had we rather make jokes?"

I LOVES me some Weldon Payne! :loveya: