Now, I understand the use of having a weekly town paper (a' la the recently improved West Hartford News), but is this town so important that it needs two separate entities covering it 24/7? I thought the Hartford Courant did a pretty decent job of keeping us informed of all the important stories. Plus, we have NBC30 right here in town, waiting with baited breath for anything to cover.
I mean, do we need to have a news story about our town's preparation for swine flu? Localonlinenews.tv seems to think so:
We're a community of about 62,000. We have the state's biggest daily newspaper literally next door in Hartford. The weekly West Hartford News and the monthly West Hartford Life should be enough, don't you think?
But maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps we DO need more news coverage. Maybe there are hundreds of wonderful nuggets of news waiting to be discovered.
Or maybe we're going to end up with two gigantic community bulletin boards.
Well, good luck MWHL and LON.tv. I hope you don't get too bored waiting for something major to happen. Oh, and if you want to know about a place that might be a drug den, drop me a line. I'll point you toward my old neighborhood.
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6 comments:
Yes, West Hartford absolutely needs more news. The weeklies are--weekly. By the time they arrive, it's old news.
Granted, the Courant does a good job. The paper's supposed to going down the tubes, but the writers who cover West Hartford are fine.
Yes, I want to know where the drug dens in your old neighborhood are. Where the heck are they?
I will admit, I have had my qualms in the past with the Courant (and cancelled my subscription when they shrunk the paper, cut a ton of jobs, and filled it with ads). That being said, I still read them online and they still cover local news fairly well.
I guess I just don't see the need for an online "TV" news station for the town when we already have the state's NBC affiliate here within our borders. Something tells me they're going to get to the news before an upstart website, right?
But, like I said in my post, perhaps there are some really great stories out there in town that AREN'T being found. Maybe these outlets could find this alternative news for us to enjoy. Maybe there are some important things that ARE falling through the cracks.
I suppose only time will tell. One thing that's certain, though, is that we'll never see these stories if time is wasted telling us about the town's Swine Flu defense strategy.
I'm a bit of a news junkie. Since all news reporting is subjective, I like to get as many different takes on an important issue as possible before coming to an opinion.
But the news sources have to be reliable. And professional. And - most important - they have to bring something different to the table.
It could be a crusading liberal spirit. It could be a nose for investigating and uncovering corruption. It could be insightful commentary.
But who needs five ever-so-slightly-different, bland, pseudo-neutral, safe, rote stories about the same issue? Why would anyone take the time to read them?
For example, from where I stand, the Courant, West Hartford News, and West Hartford Life all write pretty much the same stories about our budget fights. Interview the usual suspects, throw in some figures and dates, and move on to the next deadline.
How about finding a new angle? Interviewing someone who hasn't been heard from before? Or asking some different (tougher) questions of those usual suspects? Thinking outside-the-box a bit?
I couldn't agree more. These new daily outfits have an opportunity to try something different and they need to take advantage of that to make their existence worthwhile. Otherwise, they'll just be rehashing the same old stories that we all already get from more tried-and-true sources.
I want to see more shots of Anna Stonestreet in the bathroom! HOT!!!.
Oh wait... this isn't Penthouse.
Hmmm... Google has led me astray once again!
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