News: THE ICKY EDITION (3#) -

If it wasn't coming off the page and on to your
fingers, it was making some people sneeze . . .

Howard Kurtz at The Washington Post writes a column about the plight of American print newspapers today, including The Miami Herald.

In it, Phil Bronstein says: "Most of the wounds are self-inflicted... the public was seen as kind of messy and icky and not something you needed to get involved with."

I dread having to write about the latest
development at The Miami Herald, but here goes.

Several weeks ago (Jan 11th), Edward Schumacher-Matos, their ombudsman wrote about the contemporary newspaper feature informally called Local News Pundit columnist. He said they're here to stay; get used to them. I don't like that feature and never read them. I accept that they're here to stay, but I simply ignore them.

The local public informed the Herald that they don't like writers with agendas. And the Herald has just responded with the announcement that they've hired two new Local News Pundit columnists with conservative agendas. Go figure.

I don't live in Miami-Dade. I live in the French Quarter of Broward County, which is north of Dade. Our more local newspaper is the Sun-Sentinel.

Wolfman Lee Abrams hit my MEGO factor bigtime with his latest rant, which Bob Norman shares with us. I believe Lee Abrams uses a Sidekick as his preferred communication device, which may account in part for his writing style ;-)

Ever since I've been on the Internet, experts have been telling us that your front page screen should be a fast loader because prospective readers are not going wait around for a long loader. The Sun-Sentinel's front page screen is overly prolix. Go figure.

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