Monday, January 11, 2010

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.

2 comments:

  1. I recently applied for the sports editor position. This is interesting news.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You might need/want a job, but TRUST ME this is not the job for anyone with integrity. You are probably a very good person, and you deserve much better than Paxton Media has to offer.

    ReplyDelete