The Dying Local Paper, What a Shame!

I have a good friend who was asked to leave his job last week after over 30 years. He was a member of the Pioneer Press team that served the North Shore and gave their readers what they wanted for a long time.

And now I'm torn.

I'm sad for him. He's been a friend for a long time. But on the other hand, that place has been going down hill for a long time.

Newspapers are a dying breed, whether you like it or not, and those papers just can't seem to keep up with the times. They've gone through a number of owners over the last few years and none of them seem to understand that their readers, what's left of them, want local news. And the very outlet that this piece is being published on, Patch, better take notice.

People get their big news--world news, national news, celebrity news, professional and college sports--from big outlets like Yahoo, Google, the Trib, the NY Times. Our local paper, our local Patch, should stay away from those. When I'm finished reading about what stupid thing Obama or Romney recently said on one of the big boys' sites, I don't want to turn to my local site and see anything about it. I want LOCAL stories.

The spin that editors like to put on these stories to make them seem local is, "This story is affecting everyone in the community, therefore it's local."

GARBAGE!

Local is the village board. Local is the farmers market. Local is the diner on Main St. Local is the cardboard regatta. Just because there's a topic everyone cares about, doesn't mean it's a local issue. Talk about the library, downtown businesses, prep sports, school districts.

Don't give me a review on a Twilight movie, how the iPhone has changed your life or a ridiculous poll about whether the Zombie Apocalypse has begun. Readers will actually defend this garbage by writing, "You don't have to read it. Move on." True. But we came to this place, to this site, for local news and if we're going to "move on" Patch won't see us anymore, which is a shame because we're craving local news on local issues.

Now don't get me wrong. I enjoy Patch. I'm writing on Patch. This isn't a slam on Patch, it's a slam on everyone who considers themselves local but can't seem to stay away from non-local stories because they're trying to gain cheap readers. Seems to me that if you stayed local, you could count on your local readers, just like the gravy days of just a decade ago.

From what I understand, the new owners and the new evil editor at Pioneer Press just don't get that, at least no more than the previous batch of owners. They're cleaning house, centralizing and making things even less local. They'll be stories written for the entire North Shore instead of Glenview, stories written for Lake County instead of Libertyville and the same old movie and music reviews in all of them. (side note: Who in their right mind wants a movie review and movie times in a weekly paper when we can get those 24/7 on a million other sites? Who waits for their weekly paper and says, "Finally, now I can see what time the movie starts this weekend?")

It's so easy to look at the decline of papers like Pioneer and think it's just a sign of the times, but there was and is still value there. They just don't know how to maximize it.