bigkahuna;753624 wrote:And you will continue to ignore the fact that the media goes both ways with things like this.

Crazy, you have scarlet colored glasses AND red colored glasses.

How does it go "both ways"? I'm talking about the mainstream media now, not talk radio or people who have shows like O'Reilly. Those are not journalists who are supposed to be at least attempting to be objective. They're entertainers who have no moral or ethical obligation to be anything other than who they are.

Reporters, editors and assignment editors, on the other hand, are supposed to be the watchdogs of our Democratic Republic by balancing their views and stories, so that all voices get heard in as equal a way as possible. They aren't supposed to simply abdicate that role because they happen to really like one candidate or official or another -- which is what has happened too frequently in the past several years.

As for your last comment: my glasses are clear.

Writerbuckeye;754291 wrote:How does it go "both ways"? I'm talking about the mainstream media now, not talk radio or people who have shows like O'Reilly. Those are not journalists who are supposed to be at least attempting to be objective. They're entertainers who have no moral or ethical obligation to be anything other than who they are.

Reporters, editors and assignment editors, on the other hand, are supposed to be the watchdogs of our Democratic Republic by balancing their views and stories, so that all voices get heard in as equal a way as possible. They aren't supposed to simply abdicate that role because they happen to really like one candidate or official or another -- which is what has happened too frequently in the past several years.

Tag-Team Time

What you're saying is true journalism is dead. Now we have leftist political entertainment (CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, etc., etc., etc.) and we have rightist political entertainment (Fox News and AM talk radio).

By the way, "past several years"? How about the past several decades?

true journalism is dead but it has very little to do with a "liberal agenda." In today's world, if you don't have $$$$$$, you don't have anything. Journalists do what they need to do to get the highest ratings/sell the most papers.

Take this Birther movement with Donald Trump, all of the news outlets talked about it because they knew people would tune in and watch/listen/read. They are more in the business of selling something exciting.

Another great example was this Royal Wedding Bullshit. A lot of people wanted to have a first hand look at the Royal Family, so every news outlet had a week long coverage. I'm not saying that I wanted this, but the news didn't cover Chelsea Clinton's wedding because not enough people gave a shit.

Also, out local papers rarely report on anything positive anymore, it's all the big negative stories. You never go to work the next day and hear "Did you hear about the food drive the local school is doing?" Instead you hear "Did you hear about that murder-murder-murder suicide, housefire, and drug bust?"

If we can get away from the $$$$$ being the only deciding factor in journalism, then we can get back to good solid journalism as opposed to eye catchers.

Journalism has always been big story driven -- because it sells papers, which brings in more advertising revenue.

Local newspapers right now are on the brink of extinction, so I'm not going to begrudge them running only the hardest of news to try and keep their readership and advertising levels at least stable.

It won't be long, if trends continue, that some of these corporate owned locals simply stop publishing in smaller communities, and pull back to more regional operations.

For instance: McClatchy owns a North Central Ohio group that includes, among others, Mansfield, Bucyrus, Marion, Port Clinton and others. There is talk of completely disbanding the papers (what's left of them) in the small towns like Bucyrus, and have everything come from Mansfield or Marion. That's a real killer when it comes to ANY Fourth Estate oversight of local government.

Even now, I am absolutely certain there is more corruption going on in some of these communities than there used to be because there aren't local reporters checking on people like mayors, city councils, school boards and county commissioners, not to mention the common pleas and municipal courts.

Having been a reporter in a smaller community, I saw first-hand how officials just knowing a reporter MIGHT come to their meetings or ask for their records, changed attitudes and work ethics.

Without that "threat" of any oversight, you are going to see some egregious examples of local power plays that will end up hurting folks in small towns who have no recourse (or very little).

It's a sad situation.

Writerbuckeye;755143 wrote:Journalism has always been big story driven -- because it sells papers, which brings in more advertising revenue.

Local newspapers right now are on the brink of extinction, so I'm not going to begrudge them running only the hardest of news to try and keep their readership and advertising levels at least stable.

It won't be long, if trends continue, that some of these corporate owned locals simply stop publishing in smaller communities, and pull back to more regional operations.

For instance: McClatchy owns a North Central Ohio group that includes, among others, Mansfield, Bucyrus, Marion, Port Clinton and others. There is talk of completely disbanding the papers (what's left of them) in the small towns like Bucyrus, and have everything come from Mansfield or Marion. That's a real killer when it comes to ANY Fourth Estate oversight of local government.

Even now, I am absolutely certain there is more corruption going on in some of these communities than there used to be because there aren't local reporters checking on people like mayors, city councils, school boards and county commissioners, not to mention the common pleas and municipal courts.

Having been a reporter in a smaller community, I saw first-hand how officials just knowing a reporter MIGHT come to their meetings or ask for their records, changed attitudes and work ethics.

Without that "threat" of any oversight, you are going to see some egregious examples of local power plays that will end up hurting folks in small towns who have no recourse (or very little).

It's a sad situation.

I agree with what you say about the seeming demise of the small-town newspapers. My only problem with them is how local governments and school boards keep things out of the newspaper by calling the reporter or editor and squelch the story so as not to make them look bad. In the small town where I grew up this kind of thing was the norm. It got to the point where you couldn't believe what you read in the paper because it wasn't objective or didn't deliver the whole truth.

stlouiedipalma;757287 wrote:I agree with what you say about the seeming demise of the small-town newspapers. My only problem with them is how local governments and school boards keep things out of the newspaper by calling the reporter or editor and squelch the story so as not to make them look bad. In the small town where I grew up this kind of thing was the norm. It got to the point where you couldn't believe what you read in the paper because it wasn't objective or didn't deliver the whole truth.

Well, it all depends on the publisher or owner. If they are scared to death that people will just pull all their advertising revenue, they back down. If not, they maintain some journalistic integrity and back their newsroom.

We went through several "crises" like this when I was an editor...with people threatening to remove advertising for one reason or another. Our publisher (who was mostly a jerk, by the way) always backed us, which was nice.

Some of my stories about corruption got a welfare director fired and led to the election defeat of a municipal court judge (who is now a judge in Columbus, ironically) and despite threats of all kinds, our paper never backed down, and we lost very little revenue.

I believe that most people want a strong press because they understand the bigger picture -- so MOST of them won't pull stunts like this. Sorry it happened in your community because everyone there loses out.

Unless local papers can find a way to make themselves more relevant to younger folks, their readership base will end up dying out with my generation, and the ad revenues will likely follow, killing the whole operation.

Thanks for your insight on this subject. I happen to be one who believes that any time a newspaper goes under is a sad day for all of us. I'm sure a lot of us on here remember the days when the newspaper was the ONLY source of news.

I like newspapers as much as anyone, especially for my age. But I don't see the transition to other methods of news as any more sad than the transition from any technology to another. I certainly wouldn't have been sad at the ending of the popularity of horse powered travel and I'm not going to be sad if and when we get away from physical newspapers. There will be parts of them I'll miss but I'll get over it.

I Wear Pants;757818 wrote:I like newspapers as much as anyone, especially for my age. But I don't see the transition to other methods of news as any more sad than the transition from any technology to another. I certainly wouldn't have been sad at the ending of the popularity of horse powered travel and I'm not going to be sad if and when we get away from physical newspapers. There will be parts of them I'll miss but I'll get over it.

There is a major difference here, otherwise I'd agree with you. If a good number of the local reporters were simply being replaced in those towns by reporters working for web sites or other "new" media it would be an apples to apples comparison. Those reporters aren't doing that. Nobody is working in those towns covering the news. That would be like the horses going away but no cars came along to replace them.

This is leaving a void, and it's a void that will end up hurting people because of the lack of oversight. Small town officials can be just as corrupt as those in big cities -- maybe more so.

Writerbuckeye;757840 wrote:This is leaving a void, and it's a void that will end up hurting people because of the lack of oversight. Small town officials can be just as corrupt as those in big cities -- maybe more so.

guaranteed

As the son of a man who has spent a great deal of his life dealing with shitty small town unions and small town mayors, i definitely guarantee. The press, and by extension the local newspaper, still has a VERY important role to play, IMO.

The strong libertarian part of me really wants to believe the law of supply and demand will eventually fix this, somehow, but I honestly am not creative enough to figure out exactly how that would work. If I knew for sure, I could make myself some very nice money in the process.

I do my share of reading the websites of certain newspapers, but often you don't get everything that is in the print edition. Even though we live near the big city out here, my wife still subscribes to our old local newspaper. It comes a few days late, but she enjoys reading sections which aren't included online. To me, that's another thing which is lost whenever a newspaper goes under, the little things.

I'd argue that's because a lot of local newspapers still don't bother creating a worthwhile online/ebook/whatever edition. Which is stupid.

I agree that it's foolish not to have the entire newspaper available on-line, but almost all papers do it that way because they're trying to protect what few resources remain to print the paper.

As someone who can't get same day delivery of the newspaper I used to work for, I'd happily pay for an on-line subscription that gave me access to all the stories. But they don't have all of it on-line, even though it would be very easy to do this (and inexpensive) and could provide at least some additional revenue.

I've e-mailed the publisher and the editor, both, but they just keep putting me off saying they're still trying to figure out how their business model is going to end up. I honestly don't think they have a clue how they are going to do this, but just keep juggling things on the periphery rather than looking at something more dramatic, like putting out an entirely digital edition.

All of this has meant lost time, lost opportunities, and lost revenue for them.

That paper we subscribe to offers an e-edition, which is a PDF version of the entire paper, right down to the advertisements. You have to be a print subscriber to access it, but it gives me everything. My wife still waits for the actual paper to be delivered. She claims she likes to go through the paper itself. Probably the same reason she won't let me buy her a Kindle.

Does anyone know of any other newspapers which offer this?

The Columbus Dispatch offers the same.

Writerbuckeye;757840 wrote:This is leaving a void, and it's a void that will end up hurting people because of the lack of oversight. Small town officials can be just as corrupt as those in big cities -- maybe more so.

Due to general different political beliefs, I probably don't say this all that often, but I definitely agree with this. Small-town officials love the good ol' boy system and ignoring things like the Sunshine Law and, in many cases, basically act like they are some untouchable demigod in their little position of power.

+1