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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.
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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.