The slow death of a daily, Part I

I'm all caught up in the ongoing saga of the Boston Globe - I don't really think anyone is going to let the paper fold, by the way.

Most of the comments attached to stories on Boston.com are sputtering about liberal bias, which of course is bullshit. Massachusetts is a very 'blue' state so the Globe fits in so many ways with the prevailing bias.

All the other people can read The Herald, which is I think is a piece of shit waste of paper even without taking 'bias' into account. The Herald panders to the lowest common denominator - but somebody has to or that denominator would be disenfranchised (not good).

I don't like it so I don't read it.

At least stories in The Herald show some emotion - usually in my opinion the wrong emotion (anger), but there you go.

As for the newspaper as watchdog; well, that has gone by the wayside as newspapers have been gobbled up by corporate interests - or pandering to interests.

Think of the stories the Daily News did on Stephen Karp when he first started revving up his agenda for Newburyport. The paper sent a reporter down to Nantucket to investigate Karp's influence there, and it was heralded (in the good way) for tough reporting.

Then it all stopped.

No more stories that would be uncomfortable for New England Development/Newburyport Development appeared on its pages. Poor (at least in this instance) Larry McCavitt started being tagged as a "bully" and the paper printed some ridiculous paraphrase allegedly from the mayor that McCavitt "uses government and laws to press people into compliance."

And people bought into it as a charge against the Ward 1 City Councillor - in this case, which revolved around some floating docks in the river and the Chapter 91 law.

Well, except for my blogging colleague Tom Salemi, who responded, "Well, I certainly hope McCavitt uses government and laws to press people into compliance." That's the entire point of government isn't it?"

Then you get the blustering, oh, well, [McCavitt's] interpretation of the law. From what I understand, McCavitt helped draft the Chapter 91 law ... so if anyone should get it, he should.

Where is the newspaper to point that out?

And then there was the Great Black Dog Story - I still can't tell who was responsible for leading people to believe those tall ships would be conducting tours and programs for kiddies here in Newburyport, as reported in the Daily News.

Was it the owners themselves? Well, owner Morgan Douglas was not too happy with the story - although the link to the story is prominently displayed on the home page of the company's website, with what he complained to me was the erroneous information intact, and it was his brother who was quoted.

It's not like the Daily News made it up - but the story in the Current ran a week ago and I haven't seen any clarification/correction from the DN on its own story.

Or was it Newburyport Development that was being misleading?

Whoever it was perhaps doesn't matter to you since it's only one small thing. But it was still misleading and plenty of people bought into it.

Need I even mention that as part of keeping its DEP license under Ch. 91, NED needs to have some kind of marine camp running from its docks?

Anyway ... I read that story and thought, "Really? They're going to bring those tall ships up here in favor of keeping them on Martha's Vineyard?"

Which is why, when I was writing my story, I called and asked ... but then, even Little Miss Skeptical (me) bought into the false story that Carol DiMaiti had been killed by some random black guy with a raspy voice ... so don't think I'm patting myself on the back or anything.

(I do what I do and sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't - which is why I always say, "You should never believe totally everything you read in the paper.")

Oh - back to my main point - and I think the demise of the newspaper is attributable to what most people think: the Internet and access to instantly refreshed news is killing the printed page.

The problem with that is this - instantly usually means "incomplete." You can read a news flash online, think that's what happened and then go away - and miss entirely the whole story, which may include any corrections, clarifications and/or additions.

If anyone bothers to make them, that is. News organizations don't like to admit they make mistakes.