The decline and fall of the Fourth Estate

I swear I don't read The Post-Star searching for a grotesque lack of critical thinking in columns and editorials. I don't spend 50 cents as part of some masochistic hobby searching for basic spelling and grammar errors. I don't set out to look for these; I really do have better things to do. But sometimes they just grab me either by their sheer mind-numbing quality... or quantity.

The spelling and grammar errors are annoying because they are the most easily avoidable. I know people are human and mistakes will happen. I'm sure my own blog has the (hopefully) occasional error of that kind. But such errors get published far too often in Glens Falls' Hometown Daily (although they claim to be Saratoga's Hometown Daily too).

One of the reasons this is particularly inexcusable is because, unlike with this humble and barely-read one-man blog, every article in such a widely-read daily newspaper should be proofread by at least two people: the original author plus a copy editor. An Associated Press or Reuters piece should presumably be proofread by the original author, the wire service's copy editor AND a Post-Star copy editor.

So how, for example, does this sentence get published:

While most of our fellow students were eating fast food, we were chowing down on feasts of chicken schawarma, kibbi and falafel.

The word 'shawarma' apparently has seven different accepted English spellings... none of which are 'schawarma.' The research required to discover this fact took approximately 20 seconds.

(Though I will concur with the author that the food is extremely addictive!)

Worse still is this article about Sen. Ted Kennedy. In the print version, the headline on 'continued' part of the article read Doctor's say Kennedy has one year to live.

Unfortunately, most people in this society feel the need to insert an apostrophe willy-nilly in ANY word that ends with the letter s. But shouldn't we expect higher standards of people whose professional job it is to know the rules of grammar?

Or maybe I should pander to the lowest common denominator and re-write the previous sentence: shouldn't we expect higher standard's of people whose professional job it is to know the rule's of grammar?

The number of basic grammar and spelling errors making the printed paper has skyrocketed in recent years. But the quality of writing has endured a similarly precipitous decline.

Just look at this editorial encouraging readers to vote down 15 different local school budgets.

The paper's sole rationale for giving an A or an F grade to a budget was whether the budget's increase in spending was above or below 4 percent.

This might seem reasonable, provided you don't think too hard. Maybe that's why they couldn't be bothered to offer D's, C's and B's. Everything's black or white, with no nuance.

The paper claimed to be speaking on behalf of the taxpayers.

Fair enough, but...

(WARNING: CRITICAL THINKING ALERT!)

... given this, shouldn't the main concern have been the tax rate, not the spending rate?

Let's say School A raised spending 5 percent but taxes only went up 2 percent (for example, due to increased state aid). Let's say School B only raised spending 3 percent but got the short end of the state aid roulette wheel and had to raise taxes 6 percent.

According to the paper's logic, School A's taxpayers should be outraged and School B's taxpayers thrilled, even though the latter saw a much bigger hit to their pocket book.

This is Post-Star logic.

What if a school raised spending by 4.5 percent but due to local circumstances, this was the best it could do without slashing necessary programs? What if a school raised spending by only 3 percent but still had plenty of fat it could trim?

Using the 4 percent increase in spending mark as the SOLE and arbitrary criteria makes for a nice, cutesy editorial but does not inform the voters as to whether a budget is really good or bad or somewhere in between.

Like most of the paper's editorials, this one was more concerned with being snappily written than well-written, more concerned with being easy to digest than thought-provoking, filled with simplistic anecdotes rather than critical thinking or nuance.

And ultimately, the paper's repeated rants about school spending carry little credibility despite the importance of the issue. Maybe that's why the voters APPROVED 2/3 of the budgets that the paper had urged they reject.

The paper, along with Managing Editor/columnist Ken Tingley, whines and bitches and moans about how lazy school board members are. They condescendingly berate citizens as stupid idiots for not bitching and moaning more loudly.

But the paper never, I repeat NEVER, offers specific ideas. They never suggest how schools, or even any particular school, should cut programs a and b or trim money from c and d to reign in spending by x percent. They never offer a blueprint to guide the school boards they attack as complacent. They're great at berating people but never offer any solutions to enlighten the ignoramuses.

They must have a really good view from the cheap seats.

According to one of my sources, the paper is paying astronomical salaries to advertising people while most reporters (and presumably copy editors and others on the editorial side outside the head honchos) barely get peanuts. I'm told management holds little regard for ordinary reporters because they assume the journalists (with the exception of Don Lehman who, as you may notice, is assigned to pretty much every big story) are only using The Post-Star as a stepping stone to a real newspaper.

Here's my unsolicited advice to The Post-Star:

Give me decently written columns.

Give me non-superficial news pieces. It doesn't have to be Pulitizer Prize stuff but recognize that not every story has two sides. Quite often, there are more. But you might have to do a little digging. You might have to vary from the formula and 'think outside the box.' Give me good reporting that tells me the whole story in all its layers. Don't just plug in quotes to a cheap formula.

You're not The Pennysaver. The primary reason most people read your paper is because of the articles, not the ads. Make sure you do this core work as well as you can. Keep your eye on the ball and you might gain back some of the readers you've lost.

Gimme headlines' and articel's that has proper speling and gramme.r.

This is basic stuff one should expect of any newspaper you have to pay for, of any newspaper that wants to be respected in the community

Failing to provide these most basic elements is a sign of disrespect to the readers.

Maybe if The Post-Star wasted less money paying ad people for those crappy, contrived advertising vehicles (inserts) passed off as 'community features' and more money on people who can think, write and maybe even properly use an apostrophe, they might draw better journalists to their publication and stem the sharp decline of a once respected institution.