Style Weekly
Richmond's alternative for news, arts, culture and opinion
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Merely Musing
Posted on Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 4:00 AM
At first glance, it appears to this reader that the Times-Dispatch editorial pages are, at the least, uninformed. Often, the articles show an alarming lack of research. When mistakes on issues are made, they are simply ignored unless a reader draws attention to them. At other times the writing is inane.
Perhaps the pressure of working in such an atmosphere is telling in the writing. Every other area of the paper has shrunk; perhaps the editorial writers are watching the writing appear on the walls.
Whatever the reason, the editorial pages are terrible. They read as though the writers are all thoughtful pre-teens from 1955.
This writer is not aware of the pay scales extant in a newspaper, but it seems that editorial writers have achieved some status, and should expect higher pay levels.
Perhaps the paper should reduce its editorial pages staff, and reduce the editorial pages to a pair of columns, rather than fire experienced local reporters.
The question remains: will the readers still support a local paper with terrible local reporting and just AP news from better national news desks? Or will they drop their subscriptions to a poor local paper in favor of better national news in another locally-available major newspaper, like the Washington Post or the New York Times?
Perhaps the pressure of working in such an atmosphere is telling in the writing. Every other area of the paper has shrunk; perhaps the editorial writers are watching the writing appear on the walls.
Whatever the reason, the editorial pages are terrible. They read as though the writers are all thoughtful pre-teens from 1955.
This writer is not aware of the pay scales extant in a newspaper, but it seems that editorial writers have achieved some status, and should expect higher pay levels.
Perhaps the paper should reduce its editorial pages staff, and reduce the editorial pages to a pair of columns, rather than fire experienced local reporters.
The question remains: will the readers still support a local paper with terrible local reporting and just AP news from better national news desks? Or will they drop their subscriptions to a poor local paper in favor of better national news in another locally-available major newspaper, like the Washington Post or the New York Times?
I'm going for the Post.
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