I love reading the Sunday news, generally the Burlington Free Press, the New York Times or the Wall Street Weekend Journal. I get the local paper to be up on what is happening around the state. I generally know what is going on, because I read the Free Stress daily and I watch the local channel 3 news. I am a regular news junkie.
I was pretty pissed when the NYT Sunday paper went up to $6.50! But it has all the goodies in it, the Travel section, Fashion, Great book reviews and always buried after pg. 6, Section A… the real news. The Wall Street Journal smushed both Saturday and Sunday together but there is a great Op ed, well worth the 2 bucks. Much thinner and more readable on a short morning. The NYT takes me a couple of hours. I get the paper because I am a creature of habit and enjoy grabbing them after church, heading home to my favorite chair, coffee by my side and I peel through the papers, layer by layer, sections strown all over the floor. A perfect Sunday morning in the making.
But this morning, I was really disturbed by what I saw in the local Burlington Free Press. The paper chose to do an editorial and place it smack on the front page, on a topic that is not news: ” The Two Faces of Shaun Bryer” . There were no new details to the case, no new news. In fact, it was a regurgitation of the same story, already told to the point of redundancy about the local Morrisville teacher that has been arrested and charged with child molestation on former students.
We as a community are trying to move forward, and bringing this story back up, with no new details, only tells a second story of how perhaps the Free Press is really struggling to keep its readers. After all, much of our news today is through the TV or the internet. Subscriptions to newspapers are declining, Business in tough economic times affects the amount of advertizing that is done, papers get thin.
But to water down news coverage by putting up an old story is hurtful, to the community trying to heal, to the families of the victims and most importantly to the paper itself. If the paper does not work on good news worthy stories, more folks will stop buying it.
