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.