Is the Paulding County Neighbor a Bonafide Source for Local News?

F

Foxmeister

Guest
The Paulding Neighbor was delivered to my house this morning as it is every Thursday morning. I just finished going through it a little while ago. The front page stories were the new State House districts effecting Paulding County; the overcrowding at the animal shelter, and a story on the local DOT being busy. The State House districts story is old news by a few weeks. There was no news coverage of our BoE, BoC, or Dallas and Hiram city council meetings. The rest of the paper was all fluff pieces.

The sports section was ONE page. They had one high school football report; the PC v NPHS game, but the picture for the story was taken during a practice. There was one sports report of a high school softball player getting her first career home run and another story about a high school volleyball team. High school sports in Paulding is a big deal; especially during football. One thing I have noticed about this paper is they will also dedicate a lot of coverage to Douglas county news and sports as well, which will reduce or even eliminate coverage of Paulding newsworthy events.

This paper also has opinion editorials by three syndicated writers.

What we need here is a newspaper dedicated to reporting Paulding County news and sports. At least a weekly paper. It's not uncommon for serious traffic accidents resulting in death or injury in this county, but we never get good reporting on it. We have seen many posts where there are certain stretches of roadway in this county where serious accidents seem to occur frequently. Wouldn't it be great to have a paper that not only reported these accidents, but also pointed out how frequent these accidents are and how they are often related to high speeds (lack of traffic enforcement) and interview our local law enforcement leaders about it?

I think one of the problems we have here in the county is the severe lack of news reporting that would hold our locally elected officials accountable. We can't depend on message boards because so many people who post things about our local government entities do so with a personal with an agenda that usually involves personal vengeance in one form or another.

It would be great to have a real weekly newspaper in this county.
 
Foxmeister said:
It would be great to have a real weekly newspaper in this county.
Click to expand...

Well, we do - the newspaper of record for the county is the Dallas New Era. Have you ever read it? It will make you think the Neighbor is Pulitzer material. Besides obituaries and legal notices, it's full of stuff like Frank, Jr., shot his first deer at age 10 (with pic), and baby photos and homecoming photos, etc.
 
mei lan said:
Foxmeister said:
It would be great to have a real weekly newspaper in this county.
Click to expand...

Well, we do - the newspaper of record for the county is the Dallas New Era. Have you ever read it? It will make you think the Neighbor is Pulitzer material. Besides obituaries and legal notices, it's full of stuff like Frank, Jr., shot his first deer at age 10 (with pic), and baby photos and homecoming photos, etc.
Click to expand...

I have seen it on counters at stores, but looking at the front page, never thought it was worth the money to buy as the front page stories were fluff.

I'm talking about a real weekly newspapers full of real news reporting of events that have taken place within the county as well as obituaries, sports, human interests, and everything else that is usually found in a real newspaper.

To be honest, this is an idea I've been kicking around for some time now. I've discussed it privately with a few people from the highway. It's something that will take some capital to start up, but I believe it can be very successful. There certainly is enough businesses now advertising in the Neighbor and getting the business of the advertising inserts in the paper is bonus money. My plan would be to have the paper delivered free to every house in the county as well as be available at store counters for free.
 
In the 20+ years I have lived in Paulding Co., there has never been a real "NEWS" paper.

Sadly, that "other" site was the first semi-decent source of local news for a long time.
 
Winchester said:
In the 20+ years I have lived in Paulding Co., there has never been a real "NEWS" paper.

Sadly, that "other" site was the first semi-decent source of local news for a long time.
Click to expand...

The other site isn't even semi-decent anymore for local news as the majority who post something news worthy does so with their personal slant to it. This is especially true when someone makes a report on the BoC or BoE meetings. Too many people there have personal agendas that get in the way of reporting anything accurately, to include the owner of the place.
 
Foxmeister said:
Winchester said:
In the 20+ years I have lived in Paulding Co., there has never been a real "NEWS" paper.

Sadly, that "other" site was the first semi-decent source of local news for a long time.
Click to expand...

The other site isn't even semi-decent anymore for local news as the majority who post something news worthy does so with their personal slant to it. This is especially true when someone makes a report on the BoC or BoE meetings. Too many people there have personal agendas that get in the way of reporting anything accurately, to include the owner of the place.
Click to expand...

lol, you missed my key word...... WAS

Pubby even did a special report on me and the wifey about couple who run a business together. This was many years ago in it's early days.
 
If you could get it off the ground, Fox, that would be awesome. I should think paper costs would be one of the biggest elements, as well as fuel for the delivery persons.
 
I'm like GD, "what's a newspaper"? I read the AJC online and most everything I do is online. You noticed I DID say "most"! :))
 
I'm going to be a wet blanket - I think printed newspapers are on their way out and might be a bad investment. I only buy the Sunday AJC to get the coupons, I don't read it at all. We've moved from printed news to internet based news because we've turned into a "need to know it now" society so any news story you put in a paper would presumably be at least 24 hours old and potentially out of date in the case of a pending investigation.

I tend to think that more than a printed newspaper, we needan internet based news reporting that contains current news stories, including BOC meetings, etc. The Patch does a pretty good job of this. The other site is for gossip, innuendo, and political/religious attacks - it's not a news source.
 
LisaC said:
I'm going to be a wet blanket - I think printed newspapers are on their way out and might be a bad investment. I only buy the Sunday AJC to get the coupons, I don't read it at all. We've moved from printed news to internet based news because we've turned into a "need to know it now" society so any news story you put in a paper would presumably be at least 24 hours old and potentially out of date in the case of a pending investigation.

I tend to think that more than a printed newspaper, we needan internet based news reporting that contains current news stories, including BOC meetings, etc. The Patch does a pretty good job of this. The other site is for gossip, innuendo, and political/religious attacks - it's not a news source.
Click to expand...

I agree with you for the most part, BUT there are still a lot of citizens who either a) don't know how to find local information, or 2) who - for whatever reason - aren't hooked up to the internet. A physical newspaper would be a good summary for those folks. But generally, I agree with you.
 
I tend to agree that print newspapers are going the way of the VCR.

The community mailers seem to be doing OK, but I think it's just a matter of time until they dry up too.

You should also factor in that there might be changes coming in the post office that could affect such a venture.

I'm thinking a better idea would be an electronic media. But instead of a website they have to go to; e-mail it to subscribers every day. Think of how Groupon does it as a model to base it on. You could e-mail the whole thing, or e-mail a "front page" and they can go to the entire "paper" by clicking on the frint page.
 
My friend who owns the weekly paper in MI, also provides the paper online as well. Advertisers still like the printed paper as do a lot of readers. Also, there are a lot of businesses i.e. grocery stores, office supply stores, furniture stores, etc who like the printed paper because it's the less expensive way to get their flyers out to the consumers. His paper charges 4 cents and insert and he normally has 10 with 50,000 newspapers printed and distributed. That's $20,000 in revenue a week alone. That covers not only his costs in distributing the paper, but his weekly payroll and part of the printing costs. The revenue generated from the ads in the newspaper itself generates a lot of weekly revenue, most of it being profit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top