Wanted: Community Bloggers!
March 3rd, 2007How many seconds does it take to read through the front section of the New Haven Register?
For me, on average, about 30 seconds. Honestly, go ahead and contrast the community non-reporting of our corporate Journal-Register owned paper of record, with the new media New Haven Independent. What will quickly become apparent is that there is a revolution/sea change afoot!
I forget what the project was, but once in the mid-90’s I went down to the Elm Street Public Library to do some research on a 1970’s New Haven issue. When holding in my hands a newspaper from that era, what I quickly noted was the incredible richness of that decade’s Register, and its quantity of community reporting! The 70’s Register was actually an inch thick, rich with local profiles, and community news.
Sadly, following the 1980’s corporate purchase of our local paper, everything changed. Now, at best, the Register attempts to serve as a paper of record, covering only the largest stories. Gone is the fun stuff about community organizations, neighborhood celebrities, or high school athletics. Instead we get a bunch of AP articles, and op-ed editorials by the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Charles Krauthammer. Someone should take a picture of all the empty desks in the Register’s news room. That’s right, –as they cut and cut, from the reporting staff, — corporate management never bothered to remove the desks of beat reporters long since retired.
Anyway, the good folks at CTLP have given us a chance to fill in the voids. This is meant to be as much a community blog, as it is a blog about politics. I am only here to get the ball rolling. Please chip in!
Again, thank goodness for Paul Bass, and the New Haven Independent!
