Here's a quiz for anyone who wants to work in newspapers

OK, Junior Journalists, here's a quiz for you!
Below is a story from the Herald-Press. See if you can find out what's missing!

Tickets for the 2010 Taste of Home Cooking School are now available at the Herald-Press office, 7 N. Jefferson St.
The show is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 27 and is sponsored by the Central Indiana Newspaper Group, of which the Herald-Press is a member.
“This is the fifth straight year we’ve hosted a program,” Herald-Press Publisher Andy Eads said. “We’re expecting this to be our biggest show ever. “We encourage you to hurry and get your tickets while they are still available.”
Tickets are $12.50 each.
Doors for the event will open at 5 p.m., and ticketholders will have a chance to visit with various vendors who will have booths set up outside the Ford Theater.
Those attending the show will all receive a free gift bag. They also will have a chance to win a Kitchen Aide mixer. They also will have a chance to guess the dollar value of a carload of groceries. The person who guesses the closest without going over will win the groceries.
Many other door prizes will also be available.
Tickets may be purchased between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Herald-Press.
Tickets also are available via mail. Those buying tickets via mail should send a self-addressed stamped envelope with a check or money order to Wabash Plain Dealer, P.O. Box 379, Wabash, IN 46992, Attention: Gloria.

What's missing from the story?
How about in what town the event is being held? You might deduce that it's Wabash, but unless you know where the Ford Theatre is, you might not know. Actually, it's located within the Honeywell Center in Wabash, but that's not mentioned, either.

And really, what's going on? Sure, they say it's a cooking school, but exactly how is that going to work? Is it demonstrations or is it hands-on? Are there going to be chefs teaching? We don't know. But apparently you need to hurry and get tickets to something you don't know what it is or where it is.

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The people at the Central Indiana Newspaper Group decided a while back to start charging for their online content, but even though we see the newspaper every day, we're still able to get the Herald-Press and Marion content online for free. How do we do that? Well, we're not saying, only to say it's not illegal. We haven't hacked into anything. It's available free to anyone with a smidgen of knowledge of communication devices, or a Macintosh computer. It's probably available on PCs, too, but we've always had Macs. Or an iPhone. With apps.

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There are more changes at the Herald-Press, with Mia Blocher and Rob Edwards departing.
No, we can be kinda harsh here, but Mia is pregnant, and her decision may be because of that. Regardless of what we think of her skills as a reporter and writer, we we wish her and her husband the very best on the birth of their first child.
Rob Edwards is leaving Huntington, but he's not leaving Paxton. Rob is being moved to Marion, where he presumably will be providing photos for the CING group. But more and more the remaining reporters have been taking their own photos. That is likely to continue.

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New sports editor Austan Kas seems settled in and has written a couple of nice pieces on Huntington native Chris Kramer, who made a national name for himself on the Purdue basketball team.
Still, the deadline issue continues to hamper coverage, especially in sports.
The situation got even more ridiculous this week. The Huntington North gymnastics team won the sectional last Saturday, but the story didn't appear until Tuesday. The Huntington Homeschool basketball team, which for some reason was better-covered than the high school team this season, won the state tournament on Saturday, but that story has yet to appear in the Herald-Press. the story was posted online on Tuesday night.

But surprisingly, even though there are 5 p.m. deadlines set, occasionally games DO get reported the next day. Kas' story on Kramer's final home game, despite being a night game, made it into the next day's paper, along with the game story. A few other national stories slip through once in a while.
So it appears that deadlines ARE flexible, but apparently local stories don't warrant enough importance or the DAMN DAILY PAPER TO RUN THEM ON TIME!
This is all from a company, Paxton, which espouses how important local coverage is to them. They call it "hyperlocal," eschewing anything happening outside the county for an all-local focus.

We call it a bunch of crap. Paxton doesn't care for local news, national news or world news. They just care about squeezing out as many dollars from the company as possible before bailing and leaving smoking wreckage in their wake.

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We were also recently extremely upset about the lack of coverage of the death of Judge Mark McIntosh.
The paper ran an obituary and eventually got around to trying to write a story about the judge, but there was no effort or put into the coverage.
The judge died on a Saturday night, and his passing was widely known on Sunday. Yet nothing was done by the Herald-Press until well after the obituary had been received.
Judge McIntosh was a major figure in Huntington County over the last 20 years, presiding over historic trials over that time period, including the Eldon Anson murder, the Donna Ratliff trial and the trial of Gary Sailors. None of those cases was mentioned in the Herald-Press story.
A couple simple quotes were included, but the life and legacy of Judge McIntosh was done a disservice by the staff of the Herald-Press, either by ignorance or incompetence or laziness.

In any case, it's inexcusable.

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And we still wonder what editor Rebecca Sandlin does. She obviously doesn't edit. She obviously doesn't have any news judgement or foresight. She doesn't do any designing of the paper.
She writes occasionally, just not that well. We have respect for her son in the military and wish him safety, but she can't continue to write about him all the time. How about writing about local residents serving? How about writing about local issues and talking to the people involved?

From what we understand talking to people in the community, the staffers at the Herald-Press don't get out into the town or county, don't know the key people, haven't developed sources or contacts who might help them in their coverage.

They are also still lying to advertisers. They've backed off the circulation claims of 6,600 they had been telling advertisers, especially after they ad to legally publish their circulation at 4,200.

In the recent ad for a new reporter, they listed the circulation at 5,300. Is that the number they're selling to advertisers? Probably. But it's a lie. By now, the circulation is most likely under 4,000.

The Herald-Press continues to sink deeper and deeper into the abyss. It's going to be gone soon. It will be a sad day, but we're almost happy to see it put out of its misery.