What IWS Fans Are Saying

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Springfield News-Sun; No Longer Relevant, No Longer Local

Cheeeeers, and here with the daily headlines from Bagwine, Ohio is IWS co-host and gadabout town, man about town with your Bagwine, Ohio daily news, Matt-Man.

I would like to able to type that in, and mean it, but alas, I cannot.  And do you know why?  Of course you don’t, so please allow me to tell you why.

I would like to get my hometown news from our hometown newspaper the Springfield News-Sun, and pass on any interesting local stories contained within the Gray Lady of Bagwine unto you, however…

My hometown newspaper, the Springfield News-Sun is no longer local.  It is no longer relevant.  It is no longer the daily ledger of note on which upon its pages, contains the goings on of my city.

It has become merely an arm of advertising for Cox Publishing, whose flagship newspaper in this area, is the Dayton Daily News, so what do we now get in our “hometown” paper?  Uh-huh…Dayton daily news.

I understand the economics of newspapers.  In this digital age, printed newspapers are to information what Catholic monks were to the Gutenberg press, but c’mon Springfield News-Sun and Cox Publishing…

Have a Springfield News-Sun that reflects the news, notes, and information that is relevant to Springfield, or?

If your printed papers of several communities are going to be bellowed out of the Dayton news factory, could you at least hire local folks to keep your websites updated with current local news?

Oy Vay…the content on the Springfield News-Sun website is less timely and less topical than Yakov Smirnoff’s appearance in the movie, Buckaroo Banzai, and nearly as dry as his stand-up appearances in Branson, MO.

I have felt this way for a long time, but here’s what finally propelled me to write on this topic.

On Saturday December 1st, the front page of the Springfield News-Sun sports page featured an in-depth story about a high school basketball game that took place on Friday night.

I love it…I love high school basketball…but here’s the problem Mr. and/or Mrs. Cox Publishing…

The game written about was between Chaminade-Julienne and Greenview, neither of which are in Springfield, nor even in Clark County.  Do you really think the 145,000 or so people in Springfield and Clark County care about that game?

Of course you know we don’t, but you don’t care, because in this area, Cox Publishing covers Dayton exclusively, and uses Springfield, Middletown, Hamilton and other smaller city newspapers as advertising dumps.

Oh sure, each city paper gets a fill-in space here and there, but your newspaper “journalism” is directed by a template and formula that caters not to the local reader, but to the advertising that goes along with your radio and TV stations within the Cox Media Group.

The only things local and relevant about the Springfield News-Sun anymore are the obituaries and the pizza coupons, other than that, us yokels here in Bagwine only know for sure that last Friday, CJ defeated Greenview in basketball.

And we also know...

That the Cox Media Group made its monthly advertising quota.

Cheers!!

Matt-Man
mattmaniws@yahoo.com
@mattman_iws

6 comments:

I'm With Stupid said...

Newspapers used to be so awesome. Now they're mostly filled with stories pulled off the AP and Reuters wires and syndicated columnists. It's hard to find any local flavor in any of them anymore.

Jay

I'm With Stupid said...

Jay: I know...In our "Local" section in last Sunday's paper, the big story was about how NE Ohio has lost thousands of jobs. NE Ohio is 3.5 hours away, but as you and Matt Drudge know, we are a suburb. Cheers Jayman!!

Matt-Man

Mike said...

The St. Louis paper is owned by a group in Iowa.

Anonymous said...

Awesome post.
My page :: daily-wet-tshirt.com

I'm With Stupid said...

Mike: Well then, I bet there are a lot of articles about corn in your paper. Cheers Mike!!

Matt-Man

Anonymous said...

My brother recommended I might like this web site.

He was entirely right. This post truly made my day.
You cann't imagine simply how much time I had spent for this info! Thanks!
my website - teen porn