Former Morning Call columnist Bill White, on his facebook page, linked to a piece in the New York Times lamenting the closing of local papers and its consequences for local news coverage. There was also another column in the Washington Post on the same topic. The Post's column mentioned a couple big stories broken by local papers. The Morning Call was never guilty of that, on the contrary.
The Morning Call, while never breaking a big story, actually was the culprit of several unreported ones, save for this blog. In recent memory, the big missed story by the MC was Pawlowski's corruption. Only after the FBI raided city hall, did the local paper start reporting on the saga. This blog started out in 2007 revealing that Pawlowski really couldn't walk on water, and soon afterwards O'Hare's blog joined the fray, with his considerable skills.
Now, about the Call being the culprit, let me elaborate. During downtown's heydays, the Call's then local private owner and publisher, partnered with several prominent business owners to operate Park&Shop. When the suburban malls made center city shopping passé, these owners prevailed upon the city to start a parking authority, buying out their parking lots. Needless to say, the paper never analyzed the public money windfall to connected private owners.
For another example, move ahead forty years and corporate Morning Call, now owned by Tribune's latest incarnation, had their building included in the NIZ, even though it was across the street. The corporation sold the building to NIZ King J.B. Reilly, and outsourced the actual paper printing to Jersey City. While the NIZ is promoted by the Morning Call, it is never scrutinized by them.
Bill White is correct that those interested in the local news, while a dwindling demographic, would be underserved by the paper's closure. However, there would no loss of breaking exposés, if there ever were any from the Morning Call.
photocredit: historic pictures from the Morning Call
The "loss" of local papers now is a direct result of the lack of reporting in the past that you cite.
ReplyDeleteBill White and those still at the Call should realize that with smart phones we all have our own access to City Hall press releases without needing the Morning Call to regurgitate them as a middle man.
Similarly, we are watching the national press put itself out of business with its one-sided "reporting" of what's going on in Washington.
I worked for the Morning Call for 19 years. This local paper was very profitable. But unfortunately when bought out by Tribune they used the Call's profits to save their struggling papers which caused our local paper to struggle. And circulation has been dieing for years since the internet.
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