Tenth to the Fraser

The Newsosaur has it right:

Because newspapers still have more staff and more time to develop stories than any other local medium, they can do this immediately by training their firepower on truly significant matters, if they quit staffing meaningless press conferences; penning fluffy features; rewriting self-serving publicity releases; laboring over elaborate but inane graphics; obsessing over crime news, and transcribing dull but unimportant civic meetings.

This is not to say that all press conferences, features, new releases, graphics, crimes and civic meetings are meaningless. They are not. But it is to say that considerably more editorial imagination and discretion could do a world of good right about now.

Newspapers need to get off their haunches, boldly pick their shots, and then rip the lids off their respective towns, turning themselves once again into confident and thundering voices delivering coverage that compels attention and delivers results.

Labels: Journalism