In any given week, you’ll find dozens and dozens of stories, plus photos and other content, you cannot get from any other news source in Springfield. We provide more in-depth and watchdog reporting than other media, plus have unique local content in news, features, sports and opinion. During the past two years, we’ve been working hard to improve the News-Leader — with new features and content across the board — plus, we have expanded our community involvement and leadership with efforts like our Every Child public-service journalism project.I will leave it to those in Springfield who read The Turner Report to comment on the brand of journalism featured in the News-Leader.
This blog features observations from Randy Turner, a former teacher, newspaper reporter and editor. Send news items or comments to rturner229@hotmail.com
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Springfield News-Leader tries to justify subscription changes
A paywall is being established on the Springfield News-Leader's website. That's not news. What is news is the newspaper's attempt to justify the change by talking about all of the wonderful journalism that is coming from Springfield's paper of record:
I get the News-Leader delivered to my home. I don't really know why. I guess bad habits are hard to break.
ReplyDeleteI find this new tribe in charge at the News-Leader to be more interested in getting along than in getting to the bottom of things.
For example, the sheriff and prosecuting attorney said, 'we need more money.'
A responsible newspaper group would have looked into how the current money is being spent. For example, 85 employees but only 22 patrol deputies. The Sheriff used slow response times as a need for the 1/8 cent tax rate. Hard to respond in a timely manner when 63 employees are sitting on their rearends at the sheriff's office.
Now, should a newspaper be involved enough to discover and discuss issues like this? Not at the News-Leader.
The editor and his crew sit on their rearends waiting for the political press secretaries and public information officers at the county, city, school, university, hospitals, MoDot, etc. to hand-feed them whatever they want reported.
It's either a money issue, brainpower issue, or management issue at News-Leader. Looks to me it is a publisher/editor/management group with limited brainpower trying to save money to enhance their bonus at year-end.
Today, I'll bet the majority of the employees at News-Leader with children in public schools qualify for the free-lunch program.
And comment I did-also made a plug for your blog.
ReplyDeleteOn top of everything else-the SN-L executive publisher's copy and paste posts on the comments were nothing short of bizarre.