The person wrote:
The seemingly silent gutting of talent at The Roanoke Times is starting to show the effects of what happens when you throw years and years of experience out the window just to put a few more coins in your pocket.
I agree with this person. Over the years I have watched the daily paper decline further and further into an abyss that seems to be of its own making. The talented writers have left and the few remaining writers with ability are apparently noosed to the point of being unable to write the stories that need to be written.
Anyone with access to the Internet who reads the headlines knows that some stories take days to make it into the Roanoke Times. Maybe they figure no one reads online and print editions? I read both, and increasingly the stuff in the print edition is moot.
Which might be okay if the paper's online edition was doing great things, but it isn't. I don't like the paper's online edition at all. I have always found it difficult to navigate, for one thing. For another, the news isn't any better there.
By better I don't mean "sappy" or "cheerful." I mean, news. Roanoke has crime (every city does) but to read the daily paper you wouldn't know about it. They don't run a list of warrants or arrests or anything so that people have some idea of the many times guns go off.
Because I am married to a public servant, I know that guns go off much more than reported. And they aren't target shooting. Who knows how many DUIs there are on a weekend. Even just a total would be interesting.
The city has about 100,000 people, but from the dullness of the paper you'd think no one does anything worth writing about. Features are minimal. On the front page today there is a huge article about e-cycling. Okay, this is news, sort of, but front page? Maybe front page of the Virginia section.
I don't believe reporters beat the streets anymore. They work the phones. They attend meetings. But they don't get out and meet people. Here is an example: I was at a meeting recently with another reporter from a rival paper and during a break, I worked the room. Everybody in that place knew someone from the local weekly was there.
Nobody knew the other reporter was there, as that person never moved from his chair.
I'm not even a staff reporter, I'm a stringer writing on assignment. But I take it seriously when I'm representing a paper or magazine.
Newspapers whine about their decline, but I believe they've brought it on themselves. They've forgotten what the Fourth Estate is all about, and care only about profit in the shareholder's pocket. Newspaper reporters are supposed to hound the city council, uncover the muck, sift through the lies and untruths until the bare facts remain.
This doesn't happen anymore, and not only in Roanoke. This is going on in most large papers, and I think it will be to their detriment.
In the future, I think the newspapers that survive will be local papers with targeted local markets offering news about your community that you're not going to get elsewhere.
That's the trouble with the print edition of the Times these days; a lot of what you see is information you can find elsewhere.
Bring back the reporters, folks, and the originality. Show some courage, and report real news.
http://badjokesandovenchips.blogspot.com/2006/11/news-from-opposite-ends-of-uk.html
ReplyDeleteHello - I did a post ages ago about our local papers...
Back home there is very little news in the NEWSpaper too - from the area OR nationally. Up here they tell you a lot about what is actually going on in the region which is enough for me.
You got my point, anyway. There needs to be news in newspapers!
ReplyDeleteI think part of the problem is that newspapers that used to be owned and run by local families or individuals are now being bought out by huge corporations for whom money is the bottom line. I have noticed the same decline in newspapers here in N.C. I have always loved reading my newspaper and have considered it an essential part of my day. But I'm starting to feel less and less that way.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't just happening to newspapers. It happens wherever accountants are allowed in to run things to make money rather than do the job for which the institution was set up. The moment the dread word "productivity" is heard, the moment the shareholders' or tax payers' money becomes more important than writing news or teaching or caring for patients (for example) the service is compromised. You can trace it back a long way - to the Chicago school and monetarism foe sure. Free market capitalism has taken over the world and it doesn't give a fig for the world - only profit.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the Roanoke Times has been in a long steady decline and the recent purge has sent it plummetting. I read it first thing in the morning, but more out of habit than anything else. I have read a paper with my orange juice every day for 20 years, so it's a hard habit to break.
ReplyDeleteToday's banner headline about one guy's fight with his health insurance company is revealing. I feel bad for the guy, but this kind of thing happens everyday. I would expect this from "10 On Your Side", but not on the front page of the paper.
I agree with the observation about ownership. The decline of real news in the electronic media too. Everything's owned by corporations and they don't want to offend anyone, and/or they don't want to provide the budget needed to dig beyond the headline. That's all we're getting these days...headlines and sensationalism. Of course, I guess, we're partly to blame. We keep watching/reading and accepting the fluff they give us.
ReplyDeleteDoes Roanoke have two newspapers? You mentioned a "rival". There's hardly a two paper town anymore, so I thought this interesting.
All - ownership by corporations is a big issue. It takes the humanity out of the paper, I think.
ReplyDeleteJune - there is The Roanoke Times as the only daily, but there are a lot of weekly papers - The Roanoke Tribune (I think that's weekly, not quite sure), The Fincastle Herald, the Vinton Messenger, the Salem-Times Register, the Cave Spring Connection, etc, which cover similar territory.