Today, the paper is owned by the Tribune Company, and has virtually no institutional memory of the town. To my knowledge, there is nobody on the staff born in Allentown. The most senior writers arrived in Allentown no earlier than the early 1970's. When the paper asks for memories or photographs of the heydays, what they receive is all new to them. Yesterday, a columnist recommended a history written by somebody who left Allentown as a 15 year old in 1962, and never returned, except for a visit in 2010.
The newspaper situation in Allentown mirrors a national trend. Many communities, like Bethlehem, no longer have a local paper. I just think that each article they write should have a disclaimer.
above reprinted from December 11, 2015
ADDENDUM OCTOBER 24, 2024:In the last nine years things have gotten a little thinner for the Morning Call.The staff is smaller and younger, with less than ever institutional knowledge of the area. Their building was sold to J.B. Reilly, who named the remaining portion after his benefactor, Pat Browne. As reduced as that may sound, they are the only regional newspaper still in publication. I know the old-timers comprise much of their remaining readership. While I switched to digital only a few years ago, I have been a subscriber for over fifty years.
I’m still a full subscriber after more than 50 years. However, that’s only because my wife still enjoys reading a hard copy ‘newspaper’ with her morning coffee. Fortunately, we are financially able to purchase such garbage for as long as she wants to see it daily.
ReplyDeleteI do look over the electronic version but generally skip right over anything written of a political nature. That stuff is straight-up Democrat government propaganda of no value to me. Too untrustworthy to enrich my knowledge. Far better sources for political accuracy are available on the internet. Better still, those alternate sites are not afraid to host opposing views and have their content put to test.
So, for me, the Morning Call can go out of business tomorrow and I wouldn’t miss it at all. I now find it useless, even insulting. When it happens, I’ll consider that end to have been a suicide on their part.
Stupid management.
If only it were just the management. Too many reporters over the years have been more concerned with telling the “right” story instead of just giving us the facts. So when the Call goes out of business, there will be many involved in that “suicide”.
DeleteI think when newspapers saw their revenues decline as cable and internet news outlets multiplied, they mostly panicked. Many of those new outlets were slanted towards a particular viewpoint, and most in the print industry decided to follow that new model, losing their credibility in the process.
Instead, they should have remained in (or migrated closer to) the business of true and fair reporting, which is a niche that barely exists anymore and could be quite lucrative.
I feel the same and I've become accustomed to reading the daily news on WMFZ, Lehigh Valley Live and Lehigh Valley News websites which tend to present mostly local stories without any political bias. In some instances the reporting of local news on these websites has been surprisingly good.
DeleteI have subscribed to the Morning Call since I moved to Allentown 52 years ago. Now reduced to the digital version and Sunday hard copy (too lazy to call to cancel the latter), my professional responsibilities demand it. I often wonder what would happen to small town papers if every school district canceled their athletic programs. My guess is a large percentage of subscriptions to local papers is by families interested in school athletics...and 'poof', they would be gone, too. And while the local sports reporters are excellent and committed to 'the kids' (and even the local history of sports), the fact that our morning paper can't print stories about last night's ballgames is astonishing. Sad!
ReplyDelete