News Content

[Ron Bello]

>
>Needless to say, no radio stations are covering those meetings now. 
>I presume the Middlesex News, er, MetroWest Daily News, still covers them.
>
>But even the newspapers aren't what they used to be.
>
>Our Gannett daily here in Rochester still tries to be fairly 
>comprehensive, but the combination of stripped-down staffing, 
>buyouts that drained most of the experienced staffers from the 
>newsroom, and a shift in priorities that favors a bunch of (IMHO) 
>gimmicks such as "interactive" websites and advertiser-driven 
>specialty sections has resulted in a watered-down news package 
>compared to the old days.
>
>Here's a particular example: the business section, which has borne 
>the brunt of many cutbacks, ran an article a few weeks back about 
>the move of the old-line Jewish funeral home in town from its 
>longtime building in the old neighborhood in the city (imagine Blue 
>Hill Avenue for an apt Boston comparison) to the suburbs.
>
>On its face, it was a fine article - but it completely missed every 
>bit of nuance that anyone with any history in the community would 
>have known. It turns out that one big reason for the move to the 
>'burbs was stiff competition from a new Jewish funeral home that 
>opened in suburbia a few years back, run by a former employee of the 
>old home. Not a word of that made it into the story, nor was there a 
>word about the family that had owned the old home between its 
>founders and its recent purchasers.
>
>The result was an article that would have been completely 
>unsatisfying to anyone to whom it would have had meaning, and would 
>have been of no value to anyone else.
>
>And don't get me started on the "Living" section that's now almost 
>entirely syndicated fluff, or the editorial page's bizarre obsession 
>with rap music lyrics...
>
>s

No different here with the MetroWest Daily News or Boston Globe.
Articles skim the surface and miss the details that tell the full story.
The problem for the newspapers is that anyone who has knowledge
of the subject they are reporting knows the difference.  These are
the people the papers need as readers to survive.