Getting right on it

Here is a submission from one our our readers:

Just received the email pasted below and below it was my original August 28, 2009 email to Rebecca Sandlin suggesting this policy which she forwarded to Andy Eads on September 11, 2009. Better late than never. Damn, thats a new H-P type idea, c'mon guys!


From "Jay" hpcirc@h-ponline.com

Happy Holidays from The Herald Press.
Thank you for your email regarding our website/on-line version of The Herald-Press.
We have reviewed your comments and made some changes, the most relevant is offering FREE on-line service to all our regular subscribers.
If you are a current subscriber (or would like to subscribe and receive FREE on-line) please reply to this email at hpcirc@h-ponline.com and we(sic) get you started.
Again, thanks to(sic) all the input and helpful suggestions.

Season's Greetings from The Herald Press.

Let's Do the Time Warp Again!

Just a quick follow up to something we had here back on Nov. 11:

The Huntington school board had OK'd a new tech high school for Huntington North that had been reported in Fort Wayne newspaper and television, locally at the TAB and on HuntingtonFreePress.com, and even here on our our blog.

The Herald-Press finally had a story in on Friday, Nov. 20, a total of 11 days after it had been approved. The H-P likes to use the word "recently" to date stories that they've completely missed. That way the reader can't really tell how long ago the event actually happened.

There was another HUGE story this week in Huntington as Coroner Leon Hurlburt announced the county's first death from H1n1 flu.

The Herald-Press did put the story on the front page of the paper Thursday, but at the bottom of the page, apparently having much less importance to them than their main story, a story on the annual Great American Smokeout.

That story was nothing more than a rehashed press release from the American Cancer Society.

Now, we're all for people to stop smoking, but to make that the story of the day when there was a death from H1N1 is just plain stupid.

It's especially stupid when the Herald-Press has never looked into what is happening with H1N1 in the county. They've had stories from press releases saying that the flu is here, then stories saying it isn't here.

Then, all of a sudden, there's a death from the flu here. The H-P doesn't ask any questions, they just print what is released from the coroner's office. Do they ask how widespread the flu is in Huntington County? Do they ask if it could possibly be a problem?

No.

But they did not that it s Herald-Press policy not to print names of victims.

Which victims? Just flu victims? How about accident victims? Murder victims?

Most media outlets don't print names of victims in cases of sexual assaults, or minors who are victims in certain cases.

But most newspapers probably don't have a policy on naming flu victims. In this case, the name was not provided by the coroner, nor was it integral to the story. The main point was that there was a death, and what ramifications there are from that. But the H-P missed on that follow-up as well.

Still, we'd be interested to see that list of Herald-Press policies.

Maybe they should spend a little more time doing some actual reporting and asking people some real questions rather than worrying about names of flu victims or retyping stories on things like "National Pumpkin Week" or some such thing.

One step forward, many steps back

Well, maybe from our chiding or not, the Herald-Press did finally refer to the helicopter service as Parkview Samaritan in its second-day story on the two-car accident at the instersection of Stadium and Jefferson streets earlier this week.

But despite getting one thing right, there were some more horrible journalistic decisions made on Wednesday.

In the story on the accident, writer Drew Stone was apparently having trouble getting some information.

Monday evening, HNHS Athletic Director Michael Gasaway said he was told Krueger was losing consciousness after the crash.
“I heard she’s been in and out of consciousness,” Gasaway said. “It’s an unfortunate situation.”

Sure, you've gotten someone to comment on the the crash, but you've got one person relaying what he heard from other unnamed person who may or may not have heard something about what may or may not be true.
Not exactly the best way to get information.
This comes after a recent Herald-Press editorial that said the paper is not in the business of reporting on rumors.
Technically this isn't a rumor. But exactly, it is hearsay, which is just as bad.
There were some details of the accident from a police report, but then there were some strange additions, which aren't reported on police write-ups.

Krueger reportedly suffered severe bleeding from the accident but was wearing a seat belt and was not ejected. Butts was reported to be in fair condition but complained of body aches after the crash.

Using the word "reportedly" means it must have come from some kind of report. Whose report? You would think a medical condition would come from an official medical report. Maybe those who reportedly said the girl suffered severe bleeding came from the same person who "reported" information to Michael Gasaway.
In any case, even if Michael Gasaway HAD reliable information, passing it on to someone else is a violation of HIPAA regulations. That information can only be released by a health care provider once the patient has given an OK to do so.

---

One of our alert readers brought another story from Wednesday to our attention.
Our poster writes:

"On the right side column is a piece of work he should be terminated for. In a story regarding a man sentenced for sexual misconduct with a 15 year old girl he begins the story with this description of the one-time event which resulted in a pregnancy and his conviction:"

A Huntington man was sentenced Monday to two years in prison for having an affair with a 15-year-old girl, which resulted in a child.

Not to get into any kind of legal semantics, by definition, sex with a minor is rape.
In any case, it's not an "affair."

This goes beyond just being a misuse of a word. It's a horrible, horrible transgression. If Drew Stone isn't experienced enough to know what he's writing about, Editor Rebecca Sandlin certainly should have caught that. Unless, of course, she's not editing.

----

There was another story this week that was completely whiffed by the Herald-Press.

At Monday's school board meeting, it was announced that a new tech program was approved for Huntington North High School. This is becoming a popular program at many schools. It was reported by the Fort Wayne television stations and newspapers, as well as the Huntington County TAB.
Even given the H-P's early deadlines, there still should have been a story in Wednesday's paper.
Nada.
But they did have the perfect school attendances and the local bridge scores.

---

Continuing to follow up on the fire department situation, the Herald-Press missed on which fire station is slated to be closed.
Despite correct reports in the TAB, the Fort Wayne papers and on television, as well as on this space, the Herald-Press stck with its incorrect report.
No word on if they're following up with a correction.

----

Speaking of corrections, we should report that one of the people who commented on an earlier post had mentioned that photographer Rob Edwards had been let go. That apparently is not the case, at least for now.

While we did not originate the comment, Herald-Press Watch regrets the error and we have removed the comment.

OK, that's one thing we've gotten wrong.

Everything else is correct. Which is really sad.

Sounds good, but it's wrong

Can Herald-Press writer Drew Stone PLEASE stop calling it the "Good Samaritan" helicopter?

It's called the Parkview Samaritan helicopter. It's written right on the side of the helicopter.
These pilots do wonderful work. The least you could do is get their name correct.

Here's the official Parkview website:

http://www.parkview.com/HealthServices/SamaritanFlightProgram/Pages/default.aspx


If you don't know the name of something, or even have a question, look it up or call someone who knows.

Your source for local news

We had an important story break in Huntington County Friday. In a second round of layoffs of city employees, six firefighters were let go, and one of Huntington's three fire stations was forced to close.

The Herald-Press ran a crawl on their "Breaking News" saying that six firefighters lost their jobs. A short story online told readers the same thing, mentioned nothing about the fire station closing, and told readers to check in on Sunday to get the full story.

The Huntington County TAB was all over the story. The TAB and editor Cindy Klepper covered the Board of Works meeting in the morning and had a fully-detailed story online before 2 p.m. There was also a breaking story on the Journal-Gazette online that included the important information that a fire station was closing.

The people at the TAB knew how important the story was, and used all the tools at their disposal to get the information out to the public.

-----------
UPDATE:
Late Friday, the Herald-Press did post a full story online on the firefighters being laid off, perhaps due to the fact that the TAB already had the story online.
But apparently H-P writer Drew Stone never read the TAB story, because Stone has incorrect information in his story.
Stone said that the downtown Huntington fore station would close. That was initally the case, but after the meeting the decision was changed to close the Condit Street station.
Stone never followed up on his story. Makes you wonder if they'll check their facts before sending the story to press for Sunday's paper.
--------------------



The TAB is beating the Herald-Press on not only breaking news, but regular news as well. The TAB uses its online vehicle to get news out on time, all the more important at this time of instant news.

They are also whipping the Herald-Press in sports coverage. Because of the ridiculous 5 p.m. deadlines at the Herald-Press, there are no sports stories getting into the paper on time. By the time the stories of the opening basketball games at Huntington University hit the H-P, they were two days late.

That's no fault of sports editor Sean Giggy; he's doing the best he can under circumstances that are out of his control.

But the TAB had the HU stories online quickly. Sure, they only rewrote the press release sent by HU, but timing is everything. Anyone wanting to know what happened in the contest knew about it from the TAB 24 hours before in appeared in the Herald-Press.

For that matter, online readers can get sports news from Huntington North's Yahoo-based Viking Connection or on HuntingtonFreePress.com before they can in the Herald-Press.

It's hard to know what print subscribers are getting for their money from the Herald-Press, let alone those who pay an online fee? Why pay for an online product that is out of date by the time it appears.

Even the "Breaking News" crawl is a joke. When Gov. Daniels was here for the reopening of a local business, the breaking news ran a one-liner that the governor was coming. Two days after Gov. Daniels had been here and gone, the crawl was still broadcasting that the governor was coming to Huntington.

If you're going to use the Breaking News crawl, really take advantage of it.

Paxton Media can't figure out how to properly use the Herald-Press print newspaper, and they haven't figured out how to use the online news product, either.

The Numbers Game

We finally found something interesting to read in the Herald-Press.

In Thursday's edition (p.2), the paper finally printed its Statement of Ownership, a form required by all periodicals to file stating circulation figures.

Over the past year, the Paxton-held Herald-Press has been promoting its circulation as 6,500 during the week and 7,000 on Sundays. As we noted in an earlier post here, those numbers were highly dubious. our guess was somewhere in the 4,000s, and with Thursday's document, we were proven correct.

Current paid distribution is listed as 4,221. That number represents a 25 percent decrease in circulation since Paxton took over ownership of the Herald-Press.
Even in an industry that is struggling to keep readership, that is a huge number, especially in a small town, where readership has been generally less impacted than in major metro papers.

Now that advertisers know the true number of readers they are reaching, how many will be willing to continue paying the prices they are now, considering they are only getting to only three-fourths of the numbers they were told they were reaching?

Just one other note on the statement. The name of the publisher listed for the Herald-Press was not Andy Eads, who has the title of publisher. The name on the form was Neal Ronquist, the uber-overlord who oversees all five papers in Paxton's Central Indiana Group. Makes you wonder what Andy Eads' real role might be?

It's been easy to take shots at the Herald-Press, considering all the troubles they've had in the last year or so.

True, they've turned over an entire new staff, replacing a highly-experienced group with one that has virtually no experience, from the editor on down. We get frustrated with the inexperience, because we'd like our newspaper to give us the information we need. We want the reporters to go out and get the story, rather than wait for someone just to give it to them. There's no leadership, and no one who really knows how to gather the news.
We don't want our news two days late. By the time a story arrives in the Herald-Press, it's already old news. It's been in the Fort Wayne papers or on TV. Sports stories are the same way. In a time of instant news, running stories two days old is unacceptable.

But we also have some sympathy for the editorial staff. While they make their share of basic journalistic errors and omissions, they've also been hamstrung by the bizarre conditions thrust upon them by Paxton management.

Paxton's paradoxical way of running newspapers is the major reason for the precipitous decline of the Herald-Press. No paper, regardless of the experience of the staff, could endure under those conditions. Ridiculously early deadlines don't allow for timely reporting. Misguided priorities on coverage take away from the basic tenets of journalism. Flawed business models exchange a quick profit for long-term failure.

Paxton's mission is not to provide news to the community, but to squeeze out whatever cash they can get before dropping the local business either as a shell of what it was, or leaving it to fail altogether.

While not officialy a public utility, local newspapers are seen as a public trust, a vehicle to tie the community together. The newspaper informs, it acts as a watchdog of the community. Without a newspaper to inform, the main form of information becomes rumor and word of mouth. Fewer people are engaged in the processes that drive a community. Who knows where that apathy leads?

We know people who once were once quite involved in community activities who dropped the paper and now rarely take part in local events. This is not an isolated situation.

This is what Paxton has done to our community.

Downward spiral continues

As if were even possible, the reporting at the Herald-Press is getting even worse.

There have been a number of big stories in Huntington County lately, and while feeble attempts have been made to report on them, the Herald-Press has failed miserably.

The Mel Hunnicutt story has taken several strange turns, and the reporting from the Herald-Press has been not only incomplete, but pretty much incoherent. Even a casual reader would have a dozen questions to ask, but apparently no one from the Herald-Press has bothered to ask any of those questions.

As always, the reporters seem to be sitting in the newsroom waiting for a press release to be dropped on their laps.

Reporting on the Bible trailer episode was pathetic and embarrassing, if even for the fact that when the H-P finally got around to trying to write a story, it was days old and had already been reported on by every other news outlet in the area, perhaps the state, since it was on the Associated Press wire for at least two days before the Herald-Press ran something.

A follow-up story after a school board meeting was also an embarrassment. Mia Blocher, trying to compose a story, wrote the word "except" when the word she meant was "accept."
Where's the editor? What is Rebecca Sandlin doing? Is she reading stories? SHe's not laying out the paper. Her byline hasn't been in the paper for days. Why is she even there? If she IS reading stories, she's certainly missing a lot. It can't be called editing. No one with the title of editor would allow this kind of junior high journalism to appear in print.

This week, there was an attempt to write a story about a murder-for-hire trial coming up. Not one quote was used in the story. Reporter Drew Stone apparently didn't talk to one person about the case. Again, it looked like it came from a press release.
Even in the lead of the story, Stone used quotation marks around the words "murder-for-hire." To use quotes around words or phrases, it has to be quoted from somewhere, just as I've done above, quoting it from the newspaper story. If Stone used quotation marks, someone must have said "murder-for-hire." Either that, or no one there knows the proper usage of quotation marks. Again, I think the latter is true. Also again, where's the editor to catch that mistake?

And while we're talking about style, a recent overuse in the paper is the Herald-Press referring to itself in stories, as in The Herald-Press did this or The Herald-Press did that.
First of all, every time it's used, it's put in italics. In proper Associated Press style, nothing is ever italicized. We looked that one up. Actually, anyone can look it up, except for the H-P editor, that is.
Secondly, it's really bad reporting to cite yourself in that way. If the Herald-Press tries to contact someone for comment and fails to get a comment, just write, "Attempts to reach Joe Smith were unsuccessful." We all know it's the Herald-Press. The name is at the top of the page.
But that's nitpicking. The Herald-Press has much bigger problems than a few style errors. If only those were the lone problems.
Learning basic story structure would be a start. Learning what questions to ask might be next. Leaving the building to go find stories might help, too.


Just a few more tidbits:

The Herald-Press ran a reaction story to President Obama's speech to schoolchildren. A proper story, only it ran two weeks after the president's speech. Another example of the fine sense of journalistic timing on display at the ol' H-P.

The Herald-Press ran a photo feature on the Huntington North High School homecoming, but instead of letting Rob Edwards' photos stand out, the whole thing was wrapped by a line of advertising. Now, it's understandable to find ways to get advertising in a tight market for newspapers, but the whole thing looked horrible. Again, it was embarrassing to the paper, and ruined a fine effort by Rob.


The deadline situation at the Herald-Press has been well-documented here. The H-P newsroom had a 5 p.m. deadline to get stories to Marion, where the paper is designed and printed. That means no local sports gets reported on time, and appears two days later. The same goes for most news stories.
With that deadline for stories, it would seem that the paper must be printed in the early evening in Marion.
Apparently, that's not the case. Last Tuesday's Herald-Press had a story of Monday night's Indianapolis Colts game. Hmmmm. That game didn't end until around 11 p.m. Given a half-hour for the AP to send a story after the game, that means the Herald-Press must have been printed no earlier than around midnight.
But a 5 p.m. deadline for stories? Doesn't make sense.
The only answer is that the people from Paxton don't care. Despite all their bluster about "hyperlocal" coverage, they could care less about the readership of Huntington.
Paxton has screwed over the people of Huntington. These are people in the journalism business who don't give a hoot about journalism. They've ruined a decent newspaper that gave the county news on time, kept tabs on public officials and let the residents the information they need and deserve.
Paxton has squeezed just about all it can out of the Herald-Press. Despite all the cuts and other slashing, the profit margin must certainly be dropping.
Even the lame cash-grab attempt of making the Herald-Press online a pay site is falling flat. Now people can't even look at obituary online without having to pay for it. That's just wrong.

It's only a matter of time before Paxton will just close down the Herald-Press. There may still be a paper with some Huntington news, but it will be some form of the Chronicle Tribune out of Marion.

It's really sad. Yes, the newspaper industry is fading, but that's no excuse for what Paxton did to the Herald-Press. There are still people in Huntington that would like to get local news. There are people who would sign up again for a subscription if there were some attempt to gather and report the news in a coherent manner.

But there are no signs that it's ever going to happen.

Hello? Anybody there? WAKE UP!

This is a quick one.

It's Thursday morning, and after a quick scan of today's Herald-Press (it can't be anything but a quick scan), we still haven't seen a story on the settlement of the suit concerning the Bible trailers in the Huntington County School Corporation.

The suit was settled and announced on Monday, with the school corporation paying out $31,000 to the complainant. Other area news outlets began reporting in on Tuesday. You would think that even the sharp tools at the Herald-Press might have stumbled across it somewhere by Wednesday. It's probable that people in the community even called the newsroom about it. It's likely that no one was even in the office, though.

This is another pathetic example of the lack of concern on the part of the Herald-Press to provide our community with important information.

It is a HUGE story when the school corporation, supported by OUR tax dollars, has to pay out $31,000 to settle a lawsuit.

Would someone please wake up down there? At least try to put forth an effort.

Online product: Just as good as the original!

The following came from one of our loyal contributors:

If the goal of the teasers on the Web site is to get us to pay to access the lame-o stories within, you'd think that the geniuses making decisions at the Herald-Press would at least entice us to read the stories.

So we look at the new-and-improved pay-to-play online product and we find this headline: "Man gets 187 year for child molesting." Nothing like a grammatical error in the headline to demonstrate your professionalism — particularly since it's in the online headline, which could be fixed if anyone either (a) cared or (b) knew better.

But wait, there's more!

The first line of the story on the Web site says this: "A convicted child molester received practically the equivalent of a three-lifetime sentence."

You have to love the phrase "practically the equivalent." It must mean it's just like it, almost, kind of, sort of.

It's brilliant journalism for the 21st century, however. It says everything, even as it says nothing.

You know what? It's worked! Sign me up for the pay site. I want more of this!

Paxton Media -- in tune with the times.

More moves sure to fail

It's been a few weeks since the start of school and the new high school and college sports seasons, and we see that the Herald-Press is all over the Vikings and the Foresters.
Well, sort of.
Because of the new, ridiculously-early 5 p.m. deadlines, sports results are now two days old in the Herald-Press. A Tuesday cross country meet that ends at 5:30 p.m. won't have a story in the paper until Thursday.
School board meetings on Monday don't reach readers until Wednesday. Most breaking news that happens during the day gets reported on two days later.
How brilliant is that?
The newspaper that preaches local ("hyperlocal" they call it) isn't able to report on ANYTHING timely. A paper could have the greatest writers around (the Herald-Press doesn't), but if they can't report timely, what does it matter? Especially when the readers can go to the Journal-Gazette and get results the next day? Heck, people can sign up to the Viking Connection from Huntington North High School and have the previous day's results e-mailed to them automatically the next morning.
Where is the new editor? The new publisher? Why aren't they standing up to the powers-that-be and telling them how ridiculous the situation is?
To that end, why aren't they telling their readers why stories are two days late?

———

Speaking of content, the pickings in the Herald-Press getting even slimmer. Twice in the last week, the top stories have been about the opening of small business. We're all for new businesses in Huntington, but we doubt it takes precedence over actual news going on in the county.
By the way, coverage of the 4-H Fair was pathetic. Yes, there were a few photos and some front-page stories, but the reporting of results was an act of futility. Results were just stuffed in nooks and crannies wherever they could be found.
There was a "Special Keepsake Issue" for the 4-H Fair, which was nothing more than a handful of group photos with no results. Far from a comprehensive issue.

———

We also saw recently that the Herald-Press is reporting that its circulation is 6,950.
Wow! We've heard some whoppers in our day, but that one might stand above them all. We know enough about the Herald-Press and people who have been and still are there to know that the figure quoted is nowhere near the actual number. If the Herald-Press still has 5,000 subscribers, we'd be surprised.
A large number of subscribers bailed when Paxon Media took over, the old staff left and quality dropped off. Even more are leaving now that news is two days late.
There might be a total of 6,950 printed, but then there are nearly 2,000 that never leave the truck.

———

The most recent move by Paxton Media is to take the Herald-Press Web page to a pay site.
Now, to be fair, there has been a lively debate in newspaper circles about whether sites should be free or pay. No one wants to give anything away for free; that's understandable.
But on the other side, the whole idea is to drive traffic to the Web site, where newspapers can tell advertisers that a certain number of visitors are coming to the site.
A free site, obviously, generates more traffic, which can elevate ad rates, but does not generate anything from the news content. With a pay site, traffic drops off markedly, which lowers ad revenue, but brings in more from online subscribers.
There are models out there that say pay sites can work, but a newspaper must provide a large amount of quality content to viewers. If you're the New York Times, you can get away with it. With the Herald-Press, there just isn't enough on the site to make it worthwhile.
Publisher Andy Eads stated that the number of pay sites are rising "exponentially," which is a poor choice of words if he knew what the word "exponentially" meant. But that aside, the numbers just won't add up.
Say the Herald-Press somehow was able to sign up 1,000 people as online subscribers (an unrealistic number, but good for working a math example). At $6 a month, that's $72 per year per person. That makes for $72,000 a year. Even with that outrageously unrealistic number of online subscribers, $72,000 a year won't get the job done.
Plus, advertisers won't sign on just to reach 1,000 people.
A free site might generate 10,000 viewers a month. Tell 60 advertisers they can reach 10 times as many people with a free site than a pay site, charge them $100 a month, and the newspaper can generate the same amount of revenue.
Eads also cited the features of the Herald-Press Web site, including the Community Sports Desk, the venture started last year to give locals a chance to create their own sports content. To date, there have been exactly zero entries on that site. No one had posted a thing. A huge waste. Again.

———

One thing that Eads did not address about the new pay site was how often content would be updated. He never said when stories might be posted. Will they be the next day? Two days late like the print product? What special content will the Herald-Press provide?
If it's going to be two days late, why bother?

———

There's been a staff change at the Herald-Press. Jennifer Kannon (real name: Kleber) is gone, finally. She was replaced by Drew Stone. We don't know much about Drew other than he's not much better of a writer than Jennifer was.
New editor Rebecca Sandlin doesn't seem to be doing much editing, but considering her level of experience, maybe she is editing and it's just not very good. It's not enough just to get spelling correct. The quality of reporting has to improve.With the inexperience of this staff, though, that's a big request.

We're back and better than ever (?)

We tried to stay away. We really did.
But recent events and the lack of coverage or the butchering of those events by the Herald-Press just screamed out for comment.

But first, a little background. The Herald-Press deadline was recently moved to 5 p.m., despite the fact that the press run for the newspaper in Marion isn't until sometime after midnight. Stories need to be planned four days ahead, leaving no room for any kind of breaking news. Basketball games, which don't end before 5 p.m., don't make the next day's paper, putting them in the paper two days late.
The editorial staff in Huntington makes no decisions on story placement. All those decisions are being made in Marion. Presumably, editing of stories is being done in Huntington, but as we've seen lately, very little in the way of editing is being done. Either that, or writers and editors have absolutely no grasp of basic grammar or basic newspaper style rules. There's also no one in Huntington who knows enough of what's happening in city government, law enforcement, schools, etc., to chase down the stories that are important to the public knowledge.

OK, back to the rundown:

Early in the afternoon of Sunday, July 12, there was a fire call to the southern part of the county, near Mt. Etna. It would have been worth sending a photographer and even a reporter down to check it out. Anyone with an emergency scanner would have heard the fire and police department dispatched.
Events changed quickly when officers discovered that someone with a weapon was supposed to be around the area, possibly after having a meth lab blow up. In any event, the fire department couldn't get in to put out the fire, and a total of four buildings burned to the ground. In addition, a manhunt began for the person suspected of having the weapon.

The manhunt became huge news on local television as officers from three counties and the state police went on the search. Updates were given on TV, and Fort Wayne newspapers updated information on their websites. A story was even posted statewide by the Associated Press.

All this managed to escape the people at the Herald-Press. No one there knew anything about what was going on until Monday morning, by which time the manhunt ended with the suspect dead, either in a shootout or by a self-inflicted gunshot.

The Herald-Press did finally manage to post a story on their web site Monday afternoon. Even then, the incoherent story was a travesty of journalism, with confusing information poorly constructed.

The lede of the story gave a clue to what the rest held.

"Police’s search for a man they believed was out to kill his father ended early Monday morning in a deadly shootout."


POLICE'S? Did the writer actually begin the opening sentence of the story with POLICE'S?

"Barton L. Thompson, 34, Warren, was pronounced dead at the scene at 6:47 a.m. Monday after he got into a gun fight with officers from multiple police agencies. Huntington County Coroner Leon Hurlburt said Monday it is still under investigation whether Thompson’s death was caused by police fire or a self-inflicted gunshot wound."

At the scene? Where is the scene? Got into a gun fight?

"Thompson’s house at 8584 S. 600 West, as well as three nearby barns caught on fire, and were eventually completely destroyed."

Just for everyone out there, something is either destroyed or it is not. There is no degree of being destroyed. You don't say "completely destroyed." It's like being pregnant, either you are or you aren't. You're not completely pregnant or partially pregnant. The house was destroyed. Otherwise, it's just damaged. You might think that's being picky. No, it's just a matter of being correct. Nothing wrong with that.

"Huntington County Sheriff Kent Farthing said they believed Thompson escaped into the nearby woods, but would go to his father’s house 7365 W. 1000 South next. At around midnight, officers backed away for the night, except for state police officers, who stayed guard over the father’s home. Surrounding homes were evacuated for the night, Hurlburt said."

I don't know where to start. Let's just look at "officers backed away, except for state police officers." That's like saying "everybody got a lollipop, except for those who didn't." Just bad writing.

"Outside the house, Thompson came out of the woods and got into a shootout with waiting police that ended in his death. Hurlburt said it’s believed Thompson had several firearms at his disposal during the fight. No one else was injured in the fire or the following investigation and gun fight, Hurlburt said."

Good to know that no one was injured in the investigation.

One more note: The photo that was used with the story (a photo taken by the state police, not the Herald-Press photographer) also had a dandy of a caption.

"The foundation of the house set on fire by Barton Thompson is all that remains following Thompson's suspected arson on Sunday. Three barns were also completely destroyed in the fire."

Well... the Herald-Press has apparently already convicted Thompson by saying he set the barn on fire. BUT WAIT! Just a few words later, Thompson is only "suspected" of arson. Journalist nullification. We close out with another "completely destroyed."

Always end on a high note.

———

There was another recent whiff by the staff.

Two city police officers were busted for looking at porn while on the job. There was an intial story in the Herald-Press, noting that one officer had been suspended, with no names or reasons. The reporter was told that they were not able to get the information because it was a "personnel matter," even though a public official had been deemed guilty and punushed. Apparently, no one at the Herald-Press has ever heard of the Freedom of Information Act or Indiana's Open Door Policy, in which information has to be provided upon request.

The Fort Wayne newspapers know that, and they were able to get the information, and thus got the story. Although, only one of the officers was mentioned in any of the stories. The second officer was allowed to retire and walk away unscathed.
After the story naming the first officer made Fort Wayne television and newspapers, the Herald-Press followed up with a weak story, which looked like it was based on the story from the Journal-Gazette. No one seemed to do any real reporting, or any follow-ups on the second officer or what the police department was going to do now that they are two officers short.

This is an important oversight by the Herald-Press. Newspapers are the watchdogs for the public trust. If there's no one to ask questions, then there's really no accountability for any public official. If no one covers what goes on, any missteps, wrong-doing, etc., can go virtually unknown by the public. That's a bit scary.

———

There has also been outright willful ignorance of events in the community.

Heritage Days is the biggest community event of the year, and the naming of the Chief of the Flint Springs Tribe the centerpiece celebration, where a member of the community is honored for his or her lifetime of service to Huntington County.
The Chief's breakfast happens on Thursday morning. The Herald-Press editor was there, as was a reporter to cover the event, as Steve Mason was deservedly bestowed the honor of Chief.

But despite have Herald-Press staffers there, was the story in Friday's paper? No. Was it in Sunday's paper? No.
Finally, on Monday, after Heritage Days had ended, the story finally ran in the paper.
An oversight? Nope. It was planned that way. Apparently, all the available space had been allocated, and there was just no room to get in that story. Not that it was important or anything, or that newspapers are supposed to be TIMELY!

The writer of the story, who knew that the story wouldn't run for four days but couldn't do anything about it, felt he had to apologize to Steve Mason. The editor then had the audacity to follow up later in the week with an editorial lauding Mason as well-deserving of the honor.
Well-deserving of the honor, for sure, but apparently not well-deserving enough to run the story as timely as possible.

Sickening. Steve Mason deserved better than he received from the Herald-Press, which deliberately kept the story out of the paper for four days.

———


One of the bigger local stories lately was the murder-for-hire plot by a Roanoke doctor. The story reached something of a conclusion last week when the doctor made a plea deal. The story was the lead in the Fort Wayne papers, made statewide news everywhere but in the very county where it happened.

The Herald-Press never ran a story about the plea deal.

Speaking of big stories, the death of Michael Jackson topped newspapers around the world, and his funeral service was equally a huge event. For sure, the news media went a bit overboard in the coverage, but none went so minimalist as the Herald-Press.

On the death of Michael Jackson, the Herald-Press ran a small story on Page 2 announcing his death.

For the funeral service, an event witnessed by countless millions around the world and splashed on the front page of every paper on Earth, the Herald-Press ran no story. Ooops, they did run a two-paragraph story on Page 2, noting that people gathered in Jackson's hometown of Gary to watch the service on TV.



————

Like we said at the beginning of this post - we tried to stay away. Despite having a new editor, things are no better at the Herald-Press, and in many ways, it's getting worse. The paper may look a little better, but the content is just as lacking. There is no one doing any real editing. News judgement is non-existent. Many, many important stories are being missed. Other stories run days or even weeks late. Deadlines are now so ridiculous that the Herald-Press can hardly be called a newspaper.

On top of that, advertisers are still bailing. Revenue and subscriptions are falling.

The decisions being made for the Herald-Press, both out of Marion and the Paxton Media home base of Paducah, make absoutlely no sense. If someone was deliberately attempting to put the Herald-Press out of business, then could not do any better job than what is being done right now by the current management.

It's all so very tiring, frustrating and maddening. Small towns need a paper that cares about delivering the news. The Herald-Press no longer is doing that.

Let's try this and see if it works

Let us be the first to break news about the Herald-Press, before you see it in the Herald-Press.
The H-P will start using CommunitySportsDesk, a web-based service that allows youth and recreation leagues to use the company's software to create news stories and post information about teams. There's a lot of buzz words about "hyper-local" and "reverse-publishing" that are the new hot terms in the newspaper industry.
For sure, youth leagues don't get reported on much in any newspaper, so this is a way to get that information published locally, albeit not in the print product, whch has less and less coverage all the time.
The company line will talk about getting coverage for this segment of the communty, but what it is is they are trying to drive more traffic to the newspaper's web product in hopes of seeling some advertising. There aren't many statistics yet about how well this kind of things works, but advertising is drying up with any newspaper product, and the general consensus is that this won't work, either.

The coverage from the Herald-Press is also drying up, but that's for another blog entry at another time.

Here's the information from Editor&Publisher, a newspaper trade publication:

-----

Paxton Group Deploys CommunitySportsDesk

By E&P Staff

Published: February 26, 2009 3:56 PM ET

NEW YORK Paxton Media Group has selected CommunitySportsDesk (CSD) to collect, organize and present community sports and recreation content for its online and print products in five Indiana communities where Paxton publishes daily newspapers.

CSD's structured software collects, manages and serves user-generated content online and back in print, according to Group Publisher Neal Ronquist.

"It's like having extra stringers, coached by the software, working in a uniform way to provide content that we couldn't otherwise reach," Ronquist said in a statement. "The result is an online site that stays fresh and keeps the community engaged."

Tentatively branded as CentralIndianaSportsNetwork.com, it will include online advertising and reverse-publishing options for Paxton's five central Indiana properties, the Marion Chronicle-Tribune, the Peru Tribune, Wabash Plain Dealer, The Times of Frankfort and the Huntington Herald-Press.

CommunitySportsDesk is a hosted Web-driven product of Media Innovations LLC, a subsidiary of privately owned newspaper publisher United Communications Corp., Kenosha, Wis., where it was the Kenosha News developed the flagship Kenosha Sports Network.

CSD Managing Director Bill Dunbar said the Paxton group will provide strong community engagement for further development and extension of patent-pending CSD technology and business modeling.

CSD provides a database-driven structure to collecting and displaying grassroots sporting events, creating mini-sports pages for teams and online sports sections for community leagues. It also offers back-office functionality for league administrators. At the option of the media affiliate, selected results can "roll up" electronically for publication in print. CSD staff trains and supports media companies, leagues and team representatives.


---

The password is ...

This one was too good to let slip by:

In Tuesday's Herald-Press, the top story concerned Huntington possibly getting a high-speed fiber optic system in the next couple of years, written by Jennifer (If That Is Your Real Name) Kannon.

Jennifer seemed to be searching for a word, and couldn't quite get it nailed down.

"We will be (installing) cables all the way to the customer premise which will be serving all of Huntington.”

The basic premise is that "premise" is not correct.

Try again.

"We'll be doing a complete construction project in Huntington and then once the consumer signs up we take the fiber all the way to the preemies."

Wow. You know, you can almost forgive the first one until you see the second one.
How many premature babies actually need high-speed Internet or watch cable?
But we're glad the company is offering that option.


Just for the record, the missing word is "premises," which is not a very good word to use in that situation. "House" would have been a better choice. And easier to spell, presumably.

But thanks for playing, Jennifer. Please accept these parting gifts before you leave town. Soon.


On a side note, there was a sports teaser on page one about the Huntington North swim meet, which was called a "duel" meet. Backstroke at 10 paces, anyone?

Again, the correct word is "dual."

Regifted: New look, but same old product inside

It's been a while since we've been here, and to tell you the truth, we've just been weary.
We've had Kathy Branham becoming the first female to sit on a Huntington County Commissioner.
There have been incoherent stories that have taken three reporters to write.
Other stories have been botched, including the initial Mike Snelling debacle, when no one from the Herald-Press showed up for a public Commissioners' vote, then seemed indignant when the Commissioners refused to let tell the newspaper what the vote was. (Duh, show up for the vote!)
We've been fed plenty of news from Marion, Wabash and Peru, including one day when there were no stories from Huntington County, but a full front page of Grant County news.
The recent heavy snow and ice storms caused states of emergency in Huntington County. People went to shelters for days. Others were without power and tried to survive in sub-zero temperatures in their own homes. It barely earned a mention in the Herald-Press. Only when a press release was received from the power company did the paper have anything in, and then the reporter didn't even make a call to local authorities to see how the city and county were handling the emergency. That's not just laziness, that's just plain ignorance.
Obituaries ... it's not even worth discussing. It used to be you only hoped they spelled your name correctly when you die. Now it seems they can't even get the right name with the right obituary. They're disasters.
We didn't even touch on the whole episode with Mayor Steve Updike and his "Taliban" comments. The reporting was completely bungled, prompting corrections, clarifications, mea culpas and perhaps a doctor's note claiming the Herald-Press was ill that day.

Most recently, the paper completely missed a huge story when the Department of Corrections erroneously sent out calls to people in Huntington County saying certain prisoners were being released. Well, we can't say they completely missed the story. A week after it happened, the Herald-Press ran an Associated Press story saying that people in Kokomo had gotten calls.
Geez, it was in the Journal-Gazette the next day, with quotes from Huntington County prosecutor Amy Richison. Is anyone at the H-P even paying attention?

There was also more horrible reporting on the recent e-mail scandal at the Courthouse. Trying to make heads-or-tails out of the stories in the Herald-Press was mind-spinning. Oh, and the reporting was also a couple days late. No big surprise there.


But we guess they've been pacing themselves waiting for the new editor, who was just recently hired.
Rebecca Sandlin comes on board, bringing a wealth of experience ... well, if you call about three years of police-beat reporting a wealth of experience. She did serve as managing editor of a restarted paper in Noblesville - for a month from October to November of last year. No word on why she left that paper or what she did in the two months before she was hired at the H-P.
We guess she was working on making her own jewelry, which she apparently markets on the Internet and in some trinket shops in downstate. We'll take a crystal unicorn, thank you.

Really, at least Tom Davis had some newspaper managerial experience - for all that was worth.

So we waited breathlessly for the promised all-new Herald-Press, which made its debut on Tuesday.

We got a new-look paper, and really, it doesn't look too bad. It's an improvement from the Tom Davis-designed disaster.
But there was something familiar about the new look - oh yeah, it's a clone of the Marion Chronicle-Tribune. No surprise there. Marion is the worldwide headquarters of Paxton's Central Indiana newspaper fiefdom that also includes Huntington, Wabash, Peru and Frankfort.
In fact, the people at Marion have been handling design duties for the Herald-Press, so it's no surprise that they look the same.
A giveaway was that one of the sports pages had a folio line with the "Chronicle-Tribune" name on it.

So while the paper had a better look, the reporting was still abysmal.
Also, the type size has been reduced and squeezed some much that even people with 20/20 vision will need a magnifying glass to read it.
The flashy new look is still not enough to make us want to pick it up.

We don't hold out much hope for this new incarnation the Herald-Press.
- The same reporters who couldn't get the job done before are still fumbling through.
- A new editor with an unbelievably-thin resume was brought in to right the ship and guide an equally-inexperienced staff.
- Many of the basic functions of the paper are now being handled in Marion.
- Stories are still be missed or misreported. There is so much going on in Huntington County that hasn't been reported on that it's inexcusable.
- Run-of-the-mill press releases, grip-and-grin photos, ribbon-cuttings, free dentist days, and any other manner of ho-hum non-stories are continually passed off on the front page as breaking news while important local goings-on in government, police, etc., are overlooked or missed completely, and state and national events are flat-out ignored.
- All the while, the TAB, under the leadership of former H-P staffer Cindy Klepper, is grabbing all the advertising in Huntington County, and with the addition of the new TAB website, is cleaning up on cornering the news as well.



The Herald-Press is not so much a newspaper as it is a bulletin board for anyone handing out an over-sized check.
If a reporter would even step outside the doors of the Herald-Press, they'd find there's a bustling little community out here, with a lot of important news going on.
Newswriting is more than retyping a press release. Reporting involves going out and gathering information, and then having the ability to craft that information into a story.
The people (we can't even bring ourselves to call them reporters anymore) at the Herald-Press can do neither. They don't gather the information, and can't put together a coherent story. Maybe it's not all their fault. They're inexperienced and have no one to train them. A good editor teaches as well as edits, but again, none of that is happening at the Herald-Press, and the new editor doesn't seem to have enough experience to do that, either.

But Paxton Media doesn't seem to have much choice. If this is the best editor they could find ... (maybe she was the only choice they had) it's hard to believe she was the cream of whatever crop they had to pick from.

It's all going to be moot, anyway. The redesign is just the next step into making the Herald-Press an extension of the Chronicle-Tribune. In a way, it already is. National pages, "Home and Garden" pages, are all put together in Marion. No one in Huntington sees those pages. The brain trust in Marion is already making editorial decisions for the readers in Huntington.

All the Herald-Press newsroom does is try and write stories and take some photos. They send them to Marion where it's all packaged. All the advertising is handled in Marion as well.

In essence, the Herald-Press is the Huntington edition of the Chronicle-Tribune.

Newspapers everywhere in this country are disappearing.
For all practical purposes, the Herald-Press is gone, and empty shell with a new coat of paint slapped on.
So who will tell the stories that need to be told in Huntington County? The Journal-Gazette will cover the biggest stories. There is hope that the TAB will continue to grow and at least give us important news on a weekly basis.

And without a watchdog, who is going to tell us when Steve Updike compares people to terrorists?

Can you use that in a sentence?

To be truthful, I hardly read the stories in the Herald-Press.
It's difficult enough to get past the headlines.

The January 6 edition was enough to send a home-schooled, spelling-bee geek into a spasm.
The carnage began, literally, at the top. In a teaser headline for the sports section, the promo said:

"Viking gymnists begin season tonight."

I guess that would be the Huntington North gymnistical team.
If you have trouble getting that out of your mind, you can always go to a hypnotast.

After uncrossing my eyes, I continued to wade through the paper and reached the back page and the Dear Abby column. Thinking that I would not see butchery worse than I saw on the front page, I was quickly corrected.
The headline:

"Words Can Inflick Wounds No Apology Can Fully Cure"

No kidding. I'm wounded deeply, and apparently it was inflicked upon me, however that might be.
The only thing I can come up with is this:

"How did that booger get stuck to the wall?"
"I think it was inflicked."

While those headlines are straight-forward, in-your-face in ineptitude, I always prefer the more complex, thinking-man's screwup.

On Page 5A, there was press release (what else is new?) about the winner of the lottery.
The first thing I noticed was the phrase "Fort Wayne Hoosier" in describing the winner. Well, you know, I guess the winner could have been from Fort Wayne, Montana. Therefore, to prevent any confusion, we would need to know that it actually someone from Fort Wayne, Indiana, requiring the addition of the word "Hoosier."
So stunned was I seeing that, I initially missed the other wayward piece of punctuation in the headline. I'm assuming the amount won was $7,500, but the headline listed the amount as "$75,00"

I suppose the headline writer could have been from Europe, where commas and periods are switched.
But I doubt it.
Although I could use the 75 euros.

One of our ongoing tasks is to track the number of ads in each issue. Tuesday's Herald-Press had five block ads, called display ads. (As a comparison, this week's TAB had more than 70 display ads).
The H-P did have a page they call the "Marketplace," where they offer businesses an ad for $85 a month. With the 23 ads there, that's about two grand a month, or $24,000 a year.

What's the over-under on the demise of the Herald-Press?