During a call to new Herald-Press publisher Andy Eads, a reliable source of ours was told the Tom Davis is no longer "with the company," and that the Herald-Press is now searching for a new editor.
The latest information from another source is that Mr. Eads told Mr. Davis that his vision for the newspaper did not match with that of Mr.Davis. Mr. Davis was given 15 minutes to clear out his office and leave the building.
More to come as developments warrant.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Everybody's workin' for the weekend!
We love the Sunday newspaper. We can't wait to read the promo headlines at the top of the page, and this weekend's were particularly spicy. You know it's big news when they use exclamation points. All the best journalists pound home headlines with the hammer.
First, there's "Weddings, births and more!" Well, we don't know if we can handle much more than that!
Then there's "More Forester sporting action than you can imagine!" Hey, we can imagine quite a bit. We just hope we're not disappointed!
Let's not forget the "Lots O Savings Inside!"
Monday's paper featured some more recycled press releases that staffers rewrite and slap their own name on.
There were more obituary disasters Monday. Poor Kat Garrison. She died on Nov. 2, and since that time, her obit has been in three times, meaning at least two screw-ups. On Sunday, they ran the obituary with the name "Mary J. Smith" in the headline.
Then there's Robert G. Brown, apparently a visitor from the future, or at least lost in time. It's hard to tell, because there were so many blatant mistakes.
First, he was listed in the headline as living from 1961 to 2008, but in the obituary, he graduated from Lancaster High School in 1946, quite an achievement for someone born in 1961. Or was he born in 1961? Also in the obit, he is listed as being born in the year 2928. So I guess by being born that far in the future, he may have achieved the ability to bend time and space.
Geez, is anybody actually proofreading these things? I would think those would stand out.
First, there's "Weddings, births and more!" Well, we don't know if we can handle much more than that!
Then there's "More Forester sporting action than you can imagine!" Hey, we can imagine quite a bit. We just hope we're not disappointed!
Let's not forget the "Lots O Savings Inside!"
Monday's paper featured some more recycled press releases that staffers rewrite and slap their own name on.
There were more obituary disasters Monday. Poor Kat Garrison. She died on Nov. 2, and since that time, her obit has been in three times, meaning at least two screw-ups. On Sunday, they ran the obituary with the name "Mary J. Smith" in the headline.
Then there's Robert G. Brown, apparently a visitor from the future, or at least lost in time. It's hard to tell, because there were so many blatant mistakes.
First, he was listed in the headline as living from 1961 to 2008, but in the obituary, he graduated from Lancaster High School in 1946, quite an achievement for someone born in 1961. Or was he born in 1961? Also in the obit, he is listed as being born in the year 2928. So I guess by being born that far in the future, he may have achieved the ability to bend time and space.
Geez, is anybody actually proofreading these things? I would think those would stand out.
FRIDAY, Nov. 7
It was hard to believe that Tom Davis actually ran negative letters to the editor, these concerning the election coverage (or lack thereof). I'm sure he had plenty of letters to choose from. It was pretty inexcusable.
Mr. Davis tried to explain by saying that the Herald-Press strives to feature Huntington County-related stories. Well, that's fine, but there are times when national events supercede local stories, even monster local stories like the Lancaster Elementary mock election results.
We can't help but remember what Mr. Davis once told a friend of ours - "If people want national news, they can watch CNN." That's journalistic acumen at its best.
The Herald-Press is also now offering subscriptions for three days a week. Do we get to pick which three days we want? Does it really matter? The trick would be to decide what event you want to read about, then make sure you subscribe to the paper that comes out three days later. That should be just about right on the timing.
How many times can they recycle the same picture? Haven't we seen that YMCA picture at least twice before?
Speaking of photos, what's with running all the file photos, especially in sports? If I see a Notre Dame game story, I want to see a picture from that game, not some file photo taken last week or last year. That's the whole idea of news photography, to illustrate the story.
There's even a problem with pictures that don't go with stories. So many times they're days old. What happened to newspapers being timely? Oh yeah, this is the Herald-Press.
Mr. Davis tried to explain by saying that the Herald-Press strives to feature Huntington County-related stories. Well, that's fine, but there are times when national events supercede local stories, even monster local stories like the Lancaster Elementary mock election results.
We can't help but remember what Mr. Davis once told a friend of ours - "If people want national news, they can watch CNN." That's journalistic acumen at its best.
The Herald-Press is also now offering subscriptions for three days a week. Do we get to pick which three days we want? Does it really matter? The trick would be to decide what event you want to read about, then make sure you subscribe to the paper that comes out three days later. That should be just about right on the timing.
How many times can they recycle the same picture? Haven't we seen that YMCA picture at least twice before?
Speaking of photos, what's with running all the file photos, especially in sports? If I see a Notre Dame game story, I want to see a picture from that game, not some file photo taken last week or last year. That's the whole idea of news photography, to illustrate the story.
There's even a problem with pictures that don't go with stories. So many times they're days old. What happened to newspapers being timely? Oh yeah, this is the Herald-Press.
There's some good if you look hard enough
To be fair, there have been some bright spots in the Herald-Press.
Sports Editor Sean Giggy did a nice job with his article about Nick Johnson. It was a pretty thorough story. Mia Blocher's writing has also been solid in her stories, especially in her coverage of the school board.
Rob Edwards has a nice eye as a photographer, but his abilities are being wasted with the poor layout of the newspaper.
There's still plenty to be critical about. The election coverage, already a disaster after Wednesday's effort, was compounded when complete election results never made it into the paper or even online. One of the biggest items that are read after the election are the complete precinct results. The results are normally available pretty early on election night, even on the county's website, so the H-P should have had those numbers in hand well before deadline. They did run some numbers on Thursday and put some basic numbers on the Web site, but we'd really like to know how many people voted in my precinct and how many votes each candidate received. The grids that had always been run in the past were always easy to navigate and a concise way to see exactly what the breakdown was.
There are still more ribbon-cutting photos, with no accompanying stories about the new businesses, as well as the usual spate of regurgitated press releases.
We still can't figure something out - many of the stories in the print edition refer to additional information on the Web site, but then on the Web site, most of the stories are truncated referring readers back to the print product. Which do you want us to read? We've never figured that one out.
Besides, when are newspapers going to get a clue? If we go to a newspaper site and see that the whole story isn't there or they want us to pay for the content, we'll never go back there. But if we can read the whole story, we'll stay on the site (and might read the ads as well.) Don't newspapers realize that they generate more traffic if they put all their content up on the Web, and therefore get more views for their advertisers and can charge more for all those extra views? Many of the bigger papers have made that work, like the Indianapolis Star. The Herald-Press is definitely not the Indy Star, but if the people running the show had any brains, they would realize that increased traffic means increased advertising revenues. Just common sense.
Speaking of online, we noticed that the H-P is offering a PDF version of the paper that is e-mailed each morning. They guarantee delivery by 7 a.m. each morning. There's got to be a joke there somewhere, but that might be considered piling on.
Sports Editor Sean Giggy did a nice job with his article about Nick Johnson. It was a pretty thorough story. Mia Blocher's writing has also been solid in her stories, especially in her coverage of the school board.
Rob Edwards has a nice eye as a photographer, but his abilities are being wasted with the poor layout of the newspaper.
There's still plenty to be critical about. The election coverage, already a disaster after Wednesday's effort, was compounded when complete election results never made it into the paper or even online. One of the biggest items that are read after the election are the complete precinct results. The results are normally available pretty early on election night, even on the county's website, so the H-P should have had those numbers in hand well before deadline. They did run some numbers on Thursday and put some basic numbers on the Web site, but we'd really like to know how many people voted in my precinct and how many votes each candidate received. The grids that had always been run in the past were always easy to navigate and a concise way to see exactly what the breakdown was.
There are still more ribbon-cutting photos, with no accompanying stories about the new businesses, as well as the usual spate of regurgitated press releases.
We still can't figure something out - many of the stories in the print edition refer to additional information on the Web site, but then on the Web site, most of the stories are truncated referring readers back to the print product. Which do you want us to read? We've never figured that one out.
Besides, when are newspapers going to get a clue? If we go to a newspaper site and see that the whole story isn't there or they want us to pay for the content, we'll never go back there. But if we can read the whole story, we'll stay on the site (and might read the ads as well.) Don't newspapers realize that they generate more traffic if they put all their content up on the Web, and therefore get more views for their advertisers and can charge more for all those extra views? Many of the bigger papers have made that work, like the Indianapolis Star. The Herald-Press is definitely not the Indy Star, but if the people running the show had any brains, they would realize that increased traffic means increased advertising revenues. Just common sense.
Speaking of online, we noticed that the H-P is offering a PDF version of the paper that is e-mailed each morning. They guarantee delivery by 7 a.m. each morning. There's got to be a joke there somewhere, but that might be considered piling on.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Blogging the blogs
One of the newest features of the H-P has been the blogs. It's not bad enough that these staffers haven't yet learned how to write news stories, now they're being encouraged to write their behind-the-scenes thoughts about the stories they butchered in the first place.
I particularly like Jennifer Kannon making up words when she doesn't know the original word. My favorite is the use of the bizarrely-formed word "co-inside" when she was grasping for the word "coincide."
The one person who you would think should be blogging - editor Tom Davis - isn't. In fact, he rarely writes at all. Probably a good thing, because when he has written a story, it's nearly as unreadable as his staffers' efforts.
Last week, when sports editor Sean Giggy was out of town, Mr. Davis apparently covered the Huntington North football game. I say apparently, because even though he described the action (sort of), there wasn't one quote from Viking coach Rief Gilg or a player (Mr. Davis also misspelled Rief Gilg's first name). It was one of the best seasons in school history that ended with a tough, one-point loss, and it would have been nice to hear what the coach had to say about the game or his team's effort.
There was some sterling prose in the story. I'm sure the staffers at Sports Illustrated are starting to worry about losing their jobs. Here's the first few paragraphs. I think they can go without any further comment.
"By TOM DAVIS, H-P Managing Editor
Fort Wayne South did everything it could to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in its IHSAA Class 5A Sectional Semifinal football game at Huntington North on Friday.
However, The Vikings, who had to overcome a pair of major first quarter injuries, played along and allowed the Archers to enjoy their bus ride home following a 21-20 Viking loss.
The defeat, though heart-breaking to the Black-and Red faithful, culminated a third straight strong season under Coach Reif Gilg that has seen the local boys win 24 games over that stretch.
South had to have felt sick early on, as it watched Heath Frame, who closes his career as the most productive runner in school history, barrel his way to 20 yards in his first two carries. However, Frame struggled off of the field with an apparent hamstring injury following his second carry and spent the rest of the game on the sidelines.
Despite the setback, the Vikings (8-3) leaned on the broad shoulders of senior Cory Blocker, who enjoyed a bittersweet birthday, as he finished with 155 yards on 22 carries and a score."
I particularly like Jennifer Kannon making up words when she doesn't know the original word. My favorite is the use of the bizarrely-formed word "co-inside" when she was grasping for the word "coincide."
The one person who you would think should be blogging - editor Tom Davis - isn't. In fact, he rarely writes at all. Probably a good thing, because when he has written a story, it's nearly as unreadable as his staffers' efforts.
Last week, when sports editor Sean Giggy was out of town, Mr. Davis apparently covered the Huntington North football game. I say apparently, because even though he described the action (sort of), there wasn't one quote from Viking coach Rief Gilg or a player (Mr. Davis also misspelled Rief Gilg's first name). It was one of the best seasons in school history that ended with a tough, one-point loss, and it would have been nice to hear what the coach had to say about the game or his team's effort.
There was some sterling prose in the story. I'm sure the staffers at Sports Illustrated are starting to worry about losing their jobs. Here's the first few paragraphs. I think they can go without any further comment.
"By TOM DAVIS, H-P Managing Editor
Fort Wayne South did everything it could to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in its IHSAA Class 5A Sectional Semifinal football game at Huntington North on Friday.
However, The Vikings, who had to overcome a pair of major first quarter injuries, played along and allowed the Archers to enjoy their bus ride home following a 21-20 Viking loss.
The defeat, though heart-breaking to the Black-and Red faithful, culminated a third straight strong season under Coach Reif Gilg that has seen the local boys win 24 games over that stretch.
South had to have felt sick early on, as it watched Heath Frame, who closes his career as the most productive runner in school history, barrel his way to 20 yards in his first two carries. However, Frame struggled off of the field with an apparent hamstring injury following his second carry and spent the rest of the game on the sidelines.
| |
TUESDAY 11-04-08 Sports Time Warp
This is unfortunately way-too familiar.The Huntington University men's basketball team opened its season Saturday in Illinois, likely ending too late for the ridiculously-early H-P deadlines.
But there was still nothing in even Monday's newspaper.
The HU opener finally made it in on Tuesday. The story conveniently never mentioned what day the game was played, so the casual observer would think that it might have occurred Monday.
But it was played on Saturday.
Even so, three days late, the H-P decided to splash it loud and proud at the top of the page.
Then there's the home HU volleyball tournament that mysteriously was held "recently." It actually happened Saturday.
WED 11-05-08 Covering the biggest election in a generation
Leave it to the staff of the H-P to completely miss the mark on the easiest story to cover in decades.The election of Barack Obama was the most compelling event of the year, yet it only merited a tiny corner of the H-P's front-page coverage. Instead of running a story across the top of the page with a picture of the President-elect, the H-P brainstrust decided to run three head shots of members of their own staff, plugging their blogs on their website.
You've got to especially love the glamour shot of Jennifer Kannon. (her actual last name isn't Kannon - as a would-be actress/singer/performer, she uses a stage name).
Even the elementary school mock election of John McCain garnered more coverage than the actual election. By the way, that elementary election also was judged to be a bigger story than a local company eliminating 200 jobs.
******
A behind-the-scenes note on the election coverage: Mr. Davis sent a high school student who works part time for the H-P to the county clerk's office to, in his words, "cover the election." He didn't explain to her what would be going on there, who she needed to talk to, or what she needed to find out. She's 17 and has never even voted. How was she supposed to know what to do? What a horrible example of leadership and mentoring.
********
On the sports page, the story of the day was apparently the weekly press release about the Huntington University athletes of the week.Secondary was the season-opening game for the HU women's basketball team. Sure, there was a picture, and a score, but where's the story?
At least the score was timely, unlike the men's opening basketball game, which made the H-P three days late.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)