The one, simple call that wasn't made

With (almost) every news organization scrambling to find local connections to disaster in Haiti, the Herald-Press was asleep at the wheel once again.

The modus operandi of the H-P has been to wait for press releases to cross their desks before reprinting it verbatim as a breaking news story. Rarely have they left the newsroom to track down a real story.

When the earthquake struck Haiti, it would have seemed a natural instinct for real reporters in Huntington to start making calls to the churches in the county to see if any of their congregations had sponsored mission trips to the region in the past. Another call could have gone out to local resident David Dean, who has led many such trips to the Dominican Republic, and who has many contacts with those who have taken similar trips to neighboring Haiti.

But perhaps the first call would have gone out to Huntington University, which supports mission trips all across the world.

If someone at the Herald-Press had made that one, simple call, they might have had THIS story before it showed up on the NBC Nightly News on Tuesday, Jan. 19, nearly a week after the earthquake hit. The people featured in the story are Huntington University graduates.

One man's mission of hope in Haiti:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34944550#34944550

In that same light, kudos to the Huntington TAB, which ran a story on local relief efforts earlier this week, including the one above on the Huntington University grads, as well as other relief efforts from our area.

We told you so

Long ago, in the early days of this blog, one of the first things we told you was that some day Paxton would completely eliminate the Herald-Press in favor of a regional paper based in Marion.

That day is pretty close to coming.

Paxton's Central Indiana Newspaper Group (CING) consists of the Herald-Press, Marion's Chronicle-Tribune, the Wabash Plain Dealer, the Peru Tribune and the Frankfort Times. Marion is the home base of the group. All of the papers are printed there, and the staff in Marion makes all the story placement and layout decisions for each daily edition for each paper.

People we know with some knowledge of recent Paxton meetings have told us that the plan to make one regional paper is moving ahead.

What does that mean for the papers in each of those communities? The papers they've known are about to disappear. They'll all be getting Chronicle-Tribunes soon, with a few local stories in the mix, just to make it feel a bit more like their own publication.

But mostly, it'll be less local coverage and everyone will get a bit more from each of the other towns.

Huntington, Wabash, Peru and Frankfort will maintain basically a storefront operation with a couple of people in the newsroom, pretty much just for appearances. Everything will be handled in Marion, which really isn't much of a difference than things are handled now.
The small staff still in Huntington will get even smaller, with maybe one person here for classified advertising and a couple writers.

We've known this day was coming. We don't take any joy in knowing that. We'll mourn the loss of the Herald-Press, a newspaper with a long and rich history, recent developments notwhithstanding. This community deserves a newspaper dedicated to the people of Huntington. They deserve a staff that gets out in the town, gets to know its people and their needs from a newspaper.

We realize journalism is undergoing massive changes, but that doesn't mean there can't be competent journalists to report on what's happening in this county. It might not be a print product, but that doesn't the stories can't be told. Someone has to be a watchdog for the community.

The Huntington County TAB is the closest thing we have to a real publication, but the TAB's focus isn't on hard news, and publishing twice a week doesn't get the news out in time. But even though they only publish twice a week, the TAB still is the only news organization doing the important job of covering city, county and school board meetings. They provide that vital link to the community, while the Herald-Press does not.

HuntingtonFreePress.com has tried to get information out, but they really don't have anyone with journalism experience to truly understand how stories need to be told. Most of what is on the website is submitted as press releases and reprinted without any kind of editing. We give them credit for their attempts, and maybe it could lead to something bigger. We know some of the people there, and they have the desire to provide a quality product for Huntington.

There are some other web sites coming out of Huntington, but they are put out by people with specific agendas, not dedicated to news. Again, they are people with no background in journalism, without the knowledge to adequately cover city government, the legal system, sports, or daily news.

The problem is that online news isn't profitable. Starting up an online newspaper won't be easy, especially getting the quality people to do the reporting. We've seen with the Herald-Press that finding people with journalism knowledge and experience isn't easy.

We'll watch in the coming days and weeks for the announcement of the demise of the Herald-Press. It's hard to tell when it might happen.

Who knows. The way Paxton works, they won't even announce it. One day the Herald-Press just won't be there.

The news might show up as a press release in the Chronicle-Tribune — two days after it happens.

Another staffer jumps ship

Herald-Press sports editor Sean Giggy is the latest staffer to bail on the paper. His last day was last Friday, January 8.
We've had a chance to meet Sean on a couple occasions, and we knew about this for a while, but didn't want to say anything until he was officially done.
Sean's a good kid. He came in with no experience (just like everyone else) and was put in a terrible position right away. He was in a no-win situation with the ridiculous 5 p.m. deadlines imposed upon him. None of his stories were published in a timely manner. For a paper covering just one high school, it's insane that writeups took two days to get published.
Paxton Media had some strange ideas about sports. Obviously, it had a low priority. They also stressed coverage of elementary and youth sports, figuring that parents and grandparents of the youngest athletes were a huge untapped potential for newspaper sales.
Now we're all for recognizing youth sports, but not at the expense of timely coverage of high school sports. A lot of good stories are being missed, and we can't put all the blame on Sean.
By the way, Sean's heading to Wisconsin, where he'll be working for a television station.

Sean didn't leave quietly, though. One of our regular contributors passed along Sean's Facebook status update on his final day at the Herald-Press.

Sean Gggy is done at the Herald-Press. Sad to leave co-workers, but glad he doesn't have to deal with management anymore. If you have a position of authority in Paxton and are reading this, you're likely an idiot.

Needless to say, Sean will be leaving quite a bit of frustration behind him.

The Herald-Press search for a new sports editor is going on. There's an interesting discussion going on at sportsjournalists.com about the Huntington position. Apparently there are quite a few people who have had experience with Paxton and the way they run things.

In the meantime, sports at the Herald-Press will be handled by Austan Kas, who is the sports editor at Peru, another member of Paxton's Central Indiana Newspaper Group (CING). Kas, a Huntington University grad like Giggy, has his roots at the Herald-Press. He started there under the previous staff, serving as a part-time writer. Looks like he'll fill in until a new sports editor is found.