The New MediaNews Mercury News

The Mercury News is rapidly reaching a terminal stage and those of us who care about it are very worried. The announcement that the paper is cutting another 40 people from the editorial staff is only the latest development in the steady downward spiral the paper has been taking over the past year or so. The Mercury and MediaNews management officially blames the changes on the economics of running a newspaper—falling revenues from advertising—but it is non-local ownership that is at the root of the decline. The “new” MediaNews Mercury is even beginning to make the Chronicle (where they are also cutting staff) look good.

Under the ownership of Knight Ridder, the Mercury News was one of the best newspapers in the country and it was profitable. Its Washington bureau was doing great investigative work on the national level and the local reporters’ coverage of San Jose and Silicon Valley issues was persistent, thorough and very influential. The editorials were well written and thought-provoking, local columnists (many still with the paper, fortunately) always interesting and on-point, and the coverage of local events, arts, entertainment, Silicon Valley business, sports, and the rest was in-depth and original.

What’s more, Knight Ridder supported the community, giving large sums to foster arts and culture. What does Denver-based MediaNews do for our community? We have gone from a company with a mission to inform and serve the community to one with a “corporate mission” to serve itself and its shareholders. It’s ironic that the demise of Knight Ridder was brought on by a shareholder dissatisfied with the newspaper company’s level of profitability. We are now learning what it means to have a newspaper whose owner’s only concern is with the level of profitability.

Now, under the corporate management of MediaNews, the national and international reporting is mainly off the wires. Headlines are often opinionated. Editorials are uneven, some poorly written and researched and, in at least a couple of cases, as purposely misinformative as Fox News. Local coverage is slight and the stories that are covered are almost never doggedly followed to a conclusion. It’s too bad, because the few local reporters that are left on the beat are very good, but they are obviously spread too thinly. If it wasn’t for the columnists left from Knight Ridder days like Scott Herhold, Mark Purdy, L.A. Chung and Sal Pizarro; Richard Scheinin, Karen D’Souza and other local writers in the now-minimal arts pages; and longtime local-interest features like Roadshow and Action Line, would there be any point in picking the Mercury up each day? The recent departure of Susan Goldberg as executive editor (for the Cleveland Plain Dealer) was a very large red-flag indicator of these serious problems.

This past Sunday, the Mercury News announced that the Perspective section of the Sunday edition will cease to exist with immediate effect. This is the latest in a list of poor decisions on structural changes—such as the publication of the Eye section on Thursdays without film reviews, which now appear on Fridays—that have been emblematic of the Mercury’s demise. The reason given by the paper is that the section has low readership. Yet, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t read the Perspective section and take something away from it with them over the coming week. Cutting it is a very ill-considered decision. What’s next? Obituaries?

Speaking of obituaries, the Knight Ridder Mercury News that we once knew is well and truly dead. Will someone with a conscience please step up, buy the body and bring it back to life? We need a major daily paper that serves our community much better than what we have now.

38 Comments

  1. In November, 2006, we had a choice.  Chuck Reed – One struggling newspaper getting worse each day and on life-support.  Or, Cindy Chavez, ten daily newspapers, thriving, profitable, with diverse points of view.

    We made the wrong choice.

  2. Jack—Have we been reading the same paper?
    The Murky News has been a joke for years. How is that you just noticed that most stories are from off the wire? That’s been going on forever. The Murky has never ever done a hard hitting investigative story on who runs SJ, and who owns it. Years ago Nader came to town with his gang to find out who owned the town only to find Don Edward’s Valley Title has obscured the record with holding companies. The Murky has never looked seriously at why downtown has cost billions for no effect, loves that supid Meier “dome”, thinks there is such a thing as a “well prepared” local politician, etc. The science section? Could it get thinner? For com-parison, check out the LA Times, NY Times, etc. Their writers can actually write, and about something. Murky writers are so self absorbed, assuming readers want to know if they have grown a pimple since yesterday. I would take ANY paper to find out what’s really going on in the world, and even in San Jose IF they’d deliver it. George Green

  3. The “new” MediaNews Mercury is even beginning to make the Chronicle (where they are also cutting staff) look good.

    I have been reading the Mercury News daily since the late 1970s, and started daily reading of the Chronicle, along with the Merc, around 1995.  Although I cannot point to a specific date, the Chronicle has been the better paper, more coverage, more stories, more detail to the story, etc., for years.

    Of course, the upcoming cuts at the Chronicle will probably have a negative effect on the paper, but it has a long way to go to reach the current state of the Mercury News.

  4. The Mercury News is definitely in decline. In a recent conversation that I had with a long time MN reporter / columnist; and local history author) she stated that the only reason that she still took the paper was for the obituaries. That, and the fact, as she had worked for the paper so long, she received a 50% discount to her subscription rate. That speaks volumes about the situation.

    Recently, the expanding of the Silicon Valley Community Newspapers group of periodicals has helped to fill a gap in the coverage of local events reporting. Each “mini regional” edition is tailored to an area, and includes the types of stories that remind me of small town, community based, newspaper. Papers such as this help to build community spirit and foster a sense of belonging to an area.

    I am not vouching for the veracity of the SVCN groups reporting, but in the detailed coverage of local sports, interesting characters, and historical points of interest, it has been a welcome addition. San Jose can be greater than the mere sum of its parts. Newspapers and community interest go hand in hand for keeping the dynamic workings of a vibrant city healthy.

  5. The Mercury News seeks to shape news rather than report it. One key example is its refusal to report on underlying city financial issues.

    For example, have you seen an in-depth story about the use of very expensive “commercial paper” as the principal means of financing the airport? This is a shocking use of a very expensive fuzzy financing technique, and it has gone substantially unreported.

    Have you ever seen a story about the future cost of borrowed money by the city? Yes, you have twice in the last decade, but not with regard to the massive borrowing by redevelopment, or the design & construction costs of the new city hall. (You’ve seen a lot about this last issue by Pete Campbell, but zero on the pages of the paper.)

    The two times the paper got some depth on the future cost of financing were in connection with two projects the paper opposed: the governor’s proposal to pass a bond issue allowing borrowing up to $15B in his first year, and the county’s proposal to set up an entertainment center at the old fairgrounds. The paper raised the hard questions about future costs for the next generation relating to the real future cost of those two projects, but has utterly failed to really report on the true cost of borrowing for the airport, the new city hall, the library, BART, and every other major bond and construction issue we face in San Jose.

    When you get right down to it, the paper has even failed to substantially report on Measures O and P, and how that money is being spent, much less how much it will cost future generations.

    The only word for this is fraud on the public which is then guided in voting on public borrowing issues by special interest propaganda. There is no public funding issue on which the Mercury News may be trusted.

  6. I knew the Mercury News was in deep trouble when they started reprinting stale, weeks old articles from the New York Times. 

    Let’s see if Carole Leigh Hutton is brave enough to contribute to this discussion about the Merc’s downward spiral here on SJI.

  7. The San Jose Mercury News is similar to the Mexican Heritage Plaza, they are both jewels of our community.  They need to be taken under the wing of the taxpayer.  A taxpayer bailout is the only way to save these treasures.  Homeowners need to be assessed five thousand dollars per year to breathe life into these wonderful assets.  By taxpayers stepping up, these magnificent institutions can carry on their marvelous traditions.

  8. #13-

    Looking at most state-run media around the world, I don’t think a taxpayer funded paper would do much hard hitting journalism.

    A better idea would be to enforce anti-trust laws more strictly.  This decline came immediately after the Mercury News bought the Daily News group.  Same with the Chronicle and the Examiner.

    Step 1- buy out your competitor.
    Step 2- lay off reporting staff.
    Step 3- run a bunch of AP wire reports and pretend to be a newspaper.

    Neigher paper could decline so much if they still had competition.

  9. #7, #11 – I’m so deeply sorry for my post.  I feel hopeless and helpless.  I pray for you and your families who are experiencing so much horrific pain from reading my post.  I’m living a nightmare.  I would love to see the San Jose Mercury News regain its former status of greatness and for Mayor Reed to succeed.  I have made the world weep, I am truly sorry.

  10. The Merc. didn’t do a good job of reporting about downtown SJ.  No comprehensive report.  They don’t have the passion for downtown.  People really never got to see how well or not well downtown is doing after all the city’s investment in it.  So who cares if the Mercury News falls and folds away.  They never serve the community’s best interests.

  11. I agree with GG #6 far more than Jack.  The line between news and editorializing in “news” stories had become well blurred by the time I came to this Valley in 1973.

    If you were interviewed for a story, particularly if it was by telephone, you had to be VERY careful what you said so it COULD NOT be taken out of context with a partial quote.  I know lots of folks who refused to speak to a Murky News reporter because they knew the politcal agenda of the “reporters” (editorialists all, or almost all) would do all in their power to distort the message.

    Sal Pizaro??? LA Chung??  C’mon, Jack.  Sal’s column is just PSA’s for local groups’ events.  A trained monkey could write it.  LA’s name should be PC Chung. Never heard of Richard Scheinen; vagualy remember seeing the name
    D’Souza.

    The internet will kill all but the best papers in the world.  Without Western Appliance, Fry’s, auto ads & Macy’s the Murky wouldn’t still be here.

    A solid hometown paper would be nice; but I can’t remember that we’ve ever had one.

  12. The Mercury News was a really good paper at one time. In the past 5 years, I’ve watched it decline rapidly. News papers like hospitals, and doctors offices have become so profit driven it is depressing. You don’t even get what you pay for any more.

    I find the reporting from the Merc reporters full of errors, very bias, and the paper contains more about other states, than local news.  I too am disappointed that the Perspective Page is being pulled, the Eye Section is moved to Fridays, so much for making plans a head of time, and I do miss Action Line.

    I guess the good old computer and the internet is putting a lot of businesses out of commission. Just like self service gas pumps, coin operated parking lots, and self check outs at the grocery store. Good old progress….

  13. # 17—Are you completely unable to ever see anything from anyone’s elses point of view or to see something good in someone elses hard work. And it’s not just the Merc – you seem to hate everything and everyone. Just how bad off is your life? Maybe you could do the rest of us a favor and just crawl back under your rock? Just a thought.

    And to Sal Pizarro, LA Chung, Richard Scheinin, Karen D’Souza (and add Gary Richards, Scott Herhold, Leslie Griffy and many more): hang in there and keep up the great work you do.

  14. Beef #2 – What exactly is the problem with the Murky News becoming more of a “local” paper and less of a “regional” paper?

    I thought it was a mistake for the Murky News to try to compete with the Chronicle as a regional daily, and now that’s come home to roost.  They need to tear down, pull back and find an identity for this paper—a local identity.  That’s what works.

    You bring up the broadcast model.  When network radio became network television, what happened to radio?  It became local, more personalized, more segmented to individual demographics.  More “narrowcasting” than “broadcasting”.  This is what the Murky News needs to do.  Pull back, find a local focus, then move forward.

  15. My observations:

    > This is not a recent phenomenon.  30+ years ago, the Palo Alto Times and Redwood City Tribune existed as separate newspapers.  They merged in the 1980’s into the Times-Tribune.  It is now gone.

    Time magazine used to be a nice, thick weekly read.  It is a mere shadow of itself, with only slightly more information than People magazine.

    Life magazine existed for years as a fat, glossy picture-laden weekly issue.  It died, and was resurrected as a monthly.  And died again, and returned as a Sunday insert.  It has died again.

    > Fewer people take the time to read.  It’s all about television with 800+ channels of cable or satellite.  Or the internet & YouTube videos.  I wonder what kind of decision-making our voters will be in the future. 

    > It’s about greed.  I’m a bit shaky on my facts, but I thought that in the end, the Knight-Ridder family held significant, but not controlling ownership in their papers (Miami Herald, SJ-MN, etc.)  But they got nervous when the other large investors complained that the K-R stock was not earning the same rate of return as Yahoo, Google or other high-flying investments.  So the K-R company sold out to McClatchy, who then dumped the SJ-MN to MediaNews.  And that’s how we are today.

    The LA Times encountered the same problem after they merged with the Chicago Tribune—the Chandler family was greedy, sold out & took the money and gave up controlling interest.  So when the new owners demanded a high rate of return on their investment, cuts were made to staff,  and the LAT-CT empire is being parted out like a ‘57 Chevy.

    Fact is, big-city newspapers are highly profitable.  But institutional owners compare newspapers to internet search engines, so either cut costs or raise prices. Or both.

    I don’t have an answer.  I would guess that MediaNews would want to consolidate production costs for their Bay Area papers (a single printing plant, same size papers, greater purchasing leverage on newsprint.)  But the editorial content is where the value-add is in each local paper.  I would hope the MediaNews keeps and adds competent writers in each of its Bay Area bureaus, rather than make further cuts to the writing staffs.  But so far, they are going the wrong direction.

    I think the SJ-MN will struggle to find a new identity and community relevance.  I am unhappy that a Denver conglomerate owns most of the Bay Area dailies, but unless a White Knight (or other color or last name) comes riding to town on a horse with a lot of cash, I am afraid that the SJ-MN may be relegated to wrapping fish at Race Street Market or lining bird cages at Andy’s Pet Shop.

    A saddened M-N subscriber.

  16. Were I a professional educator charged with defending the dismal state of our local school system, I could think of no better retort than to point at the Mercury News and say, “Well, it’s become just as lousy.” As far as I’m concerned, education and journalism have been done in by succumbing to the very same stupid, politicized notion that achievement is something that can be claimed rather than earned.

    The result? In the school system a high school diploma has become all but meaningless, certifying no absolute standard of knowledge or skills. In journalism, that a given news story is just as likely to be constructed to influence as it is to inform. It doesn’t matter that we, the public, want a high school diploma to mean something, or expect our newspaper to provide us with impartial news and information; in both cases, what we get has nothing to do with what they pretend to provide us, or what we want.

    Here, the words of a Knight Ridder executive, way back in 1978:

    “A newspaper’s product is neither news nor information. We are in the influence business. We create two kinds of influence: societal influence (not for sale) and influence on the decision to buy (for sale). But they are related, because the former enhances the value of the latter.”

    —Hal Jurgensmeyer (1931-1995) in a conversation with Philip Meyer, Miami, Fla., 1978.

    http://www.unc.edu/~pmeyer/Quality_Project/quality_intro.html

    Well, it seems that this most arrogant of professions misjudged the longevity of its cash cow (its ability to influence buying decisions), a loss that now threatens its ability to influence society. After all, how much influence can a newspaper have if no one reads it? How much influence can a newspaper have when the public laughs at its claims of objectivity and professional standards?

    Any chance the print media will change its ways? Any chance that journalists will realize that America does not need their slant, their progressive delusions, their assault on American traditions? The public has not lost its appetite for the news, not lost the desire to read about itself, not lost the desire to turn the pages of a real newspaper. Produce a local paper that feeds the hunger of locals and they will stick around for the regional, national, and international courses. Embrace the internet: cover, comment, and make reference to shopping sites, local blogs, national blogs and websites, etc. Pretending the net isn’t there, or that its product somehow tainted or unworthy, will work for the newspaper business just as disastrously as it did for the music business.

  17. SJ doesn’t need a newspaper or a downtown.  Lets face the facts here people SJ is a “bedroom community”, we eat, sh*t and sleep in San Jose, but we work and play somewhere else.  Lipsticks can’t help this pig.

    and I love pig.

  18. I just learned last Sunday that the Perspective section I read would be the last one.  The reason it seems was that it was the least popular section and therefore could be cut from the budget. 

    It was my favorite section that I saved for last after quickly running through the front, local and business sections.  I took my time with Perspectives and now that I hear it was the least read section it makes me wonder why I liked it so.  Am I really that odd?  Don’t answer that please.

  19. Thanks for a good article Jack.  And, Dale (10), thanks for the mention.  About nine months ago, I sent a detailed packet of information regarding the city hall project to several of the higher ups at the MERC.  (contained in these packets of information were copies of city memos that shed light on the subject).  I made the argument that the paper (for whatever reason) never covered the subject fully, and that it wasn’t too late to do so.  No one responded in a serious way. (in fact, Susan Goldberg’s office never responded at all!)

    Let’s put the Mercury News to the test:  challenge them to do a story on how much the rotunda cost. (No one seems to know.  I’ve seen estimates from $5 million to $25 million!  Isn’t it important to know exactly how much that crystal silo cost?)

    The MERC’s decision to drop the PERSPECTIVE section is a step in the wrong direction.  There should be a section like PERSPECTIVE in the paper every day.

    Pete campbell

  20. Too much dumping on the Merc. Do you really think there is pervasive bias? Specifics, please! I just don’t see it, certainly not on a wide scale.

    I’m very saddened to see the Perspective section cancelled, too. Was one of my very favorite sections of the paper. It reflects more on our citizenry and culture that the reason for its demise is “low readership”.

    Don’t people feel they have obligations to know what’s going on in their community and the world? How will they vote, if they vote? Just by watching the slickly produced TV commercials before the elections? Probably they won’t bother, as they’re too busy keeping up with Paris H., American Idle, the Giants, Niners and Sharks.

    Of course, the people reading this blog are the exception to this intellectual laziness.

  21. We have hung on to our subscription to the Mercury but it has been sadly obvious for some time the morning ritual of sipping a cup of coffee over the newspaper will soon be a thing of the past.  Too many mornings I find myself pulling out my laptop because the increasingly thin paper is filled with old news, or no news.

  22. Actually, Paul # 16, relatively few people have a passion for downtown.  It’s an absolute fact that many—most prominently Tom McE—refuse to comprehend.  SJ is suburbia.  They have a passion for their neighborhoods.  Starting with Tom McE, RDA has spent billions to revive a moribund downtown…to little avail.  The new highrises will help, since there will be indigenous people. 

    But, according to the Murky News, only 800 of the 2500 units that would have been exempt from BMR units have been built.  The market has spoken.

    The 360 residences have a very high per square foot pricetag, call themselves “luxury” condos, but are filled with cheap interior fixtures, no ability to upgrade from carpet to hardwood floors, no capability to install ceiling lighting except what they put in, and insufficient parking spaces, particularly for multi-bedroom units, and no guest parking.

    Max #19—you are obviously easily pleased.  You probably think The Spaghetti Factory is fine dining with great ambience.

  23. Don’t expect the San Jose Mercury News to pull out of their nose dive.  With the egregious, erroneous and outrageous attacks by above bloggers their demise is ensured.  Certain individuals with massive egos should stick to doing what they do best – puffing up their chest, telling everyone what great work they’re doing in the community and using the taxpayer as an ATM machine.  Maybe one day they’ll pack up their suitcases and high-tail it back to the Great Lakes region with all the other crooked lawyers.

  24. And you, JMO, are obviously that very tired and bitter old man who accomplished nothing in his own life so will spend the rest of it grousing and belittling everything and everyone around him. Isn’t it time for you to go throw more rocks at the neighborhood kids?

  25. While the internet has certainly hurt the San Jose Mercury, I feel it is not the main reason for the Mercury’s decline. In my opinion, the Mercury has lost touch with their main stream readership and presented a rather blatant one-sided bias that has permeated their reporting and editorials, with some exceptions. I know of articles I read where I knew first hand that very pertinent, material facts where either wrong or omitted, yet there was no accountability for the reporters, although I guess the ultimate accountability is being borne out with the Mercury’s decline. These are the same reporters who are the first to jump on the Police Auditor’s bandwagon to demand the police are more accountable, even though these same reporters are accountable to no one. There is a certain hypocrisy and arrogance to the Mercury that in my opionion has alienated their readers who in turn cancelled their subscriptions. I am speaking for my own experiece, and many others I know who also cancelled subscriptions. I use the internet for news, but I would much rather have a paper on my desk with a cup of coffee first thing in the early morning. I just can’t do it with the Mercury. If something more mainstream and balanced comes along, I will be in line to buy a subscription as I am sure will others.

  26. Really couldn’t be better said Jack.  The Grand Jury for 2006-2007 is finishing its term next week.  Many of the investigations have already been published to forwarded to the media.  The reports which have been published can be viewed at http://www.sccsuperiorcourt.org/jury/GJ.html.
    Many meaty subjects.  For example it was discovered that the Sunnyvale City Council and Mayor were sworn in before the Registrar of Voters certified the election.  All of the reports listed have been forwarded to the Mercury News.  Which ones were published?  Bring back Knight-Ridder. The end of the term will bring out more reports.  Let’s see what gets published.

  27. Great post Jack, well worth waiting for!  Sadly the Mercury has even more problems then you note. For instance, the Mercury is becoming less and less of a “regional” paper, focusing mainly on San Jose.  Since the Merc is cutting more staff, it is hard to see how the Merc will be able to cover all of the cities it claims to represent.  Even worse, the Merc rarely covers stories that are beyond our Santa Clara border.  Reading the Merc you would not know that San Francisco and Oakland even exist.

    The newspaper business just can’t seem to come to grips with the changes facing them.  How long did they ignore Craigs list?  Ebay?  The internet?  And of course my pet peeve which is the fact that the Mercury STILL has not figured out that absentee voters have moved “election” day up by three weeks.

    While there are many reasons for the demise of the Mercury, there is a more serious problem that is effecting all of our media, both broadcast and print, and that is the rules of ownership.  Not long ago there were laws in place that helped to create local ownership and control of our media.  The elimination of these rules have created these media monopolies that do not serve the local communities.  As you state we now see more and more dependency on news wires and far too little original investigative reporting. 

    The problem goes even deeper if one looks at what is happening in radio.  You can find a good report on what has happened to “balance” in radio by clicking here, basically the bottom line is that corporate ownership of media has eliminated local reporting as well as political balance.

    The Newspaper business is going to need to reinvent how they make a profit while also delivering a top notch product: NEWS and features that readers want and communities need.  Eliminating whole sections of the paper as well as cutting staff isn’t going to help the Merc (or their few remaining readers) in the long run, though it might make their bottom line a bit better for the moment.

  28. Jack:

    Find someone like Mr. Wolff who needs a zoning change and then use the profits to start a new newspaper.  It affects more people on a daily basis than a soccer stadium. It’s all for the good of San Jose.

  29. I had a long time subscription to the Mercury, but discontinued it a couple of years ago. It seemed like the line between what was suppose to be a factual article and and what was suppose to be an editorial had become very blurred. I also had personal knowledge of certain factual articles and knew that some of the information contained in the articles was wrong but there was no retractions to correct this information and the reporters didn’t seem to be held accountable for not doing a good job.

  30. To those who state that there is no bias in the Murk, I would ask this question:

    When was the last time that the San Jose Mercury-News endorsed a Republican for POTUS?  Or for U.S. Senate?  Or for Governor, or any of the down-ticket slots on the State ballot?

    One could say that the editorial board is merely “reflecting” the overwhelmingly democrat population of the local community; as a conservative, I could equally state that no conservative position has been given a level, fighting chance in the Murk since the days when TMcE was prowling the halls of the old City Hall.

    It is what it is.  The reason that the Murk is failing is because people are not buying it.  Whether it is because folks feel they can get their news in a more accurate or inexpensive fashion online, or because they’re P-O’ed at the perceived bias, or because they give SJSU sports coverage short shrift in order to extol the Glories of Kal and Furd, people have been consistently not buying the Murk.

    The fault lies not with Dean Singleton, with MediaNews, the McClatchy group, or anyone else – it lies with the folks now actually producing the paper.

    Produce something the people want, and it will be bought.

    Don’t, as you are now doing, and the paper will fail.  And deservedly so.

    The recipe for Murk success:
    1) Report locally and fairly, consistently and equally. 
    2) Be the best source of information for your community. 
    3) Don’t be perceived as a house organ for ANY political organization or politician.

    It’s not that complicated.

  31. CNET.com has a story about the on-going changes in the media business. 

    The M-N cutbacks is just one of the events.  The SF Chronicle also experiencing layoffs.  Rupert Murdoch trying to buy the Wall St Journal, and if he prevails, expect cuts there, too.  Stay tuned for more.  And be prepared for a thinner
    and probably much less informative M-N.

    Here is a link to the article:

    http://tinyurl.com/2nktt3

    Or the original:
    http://news.com.com/Media+tremors-the+earth+is+shifting/2010-1025_3-6192734.html?tag=nefd.top

    Parents: encourage your children to read everything they can get their hands on, to expand their knowledge. 
    The gov’t hasn’t figured out how to tax that.  Yet.

  32. 34 – If there was ever a decent Conservative candidate running in this area, maybe the Merc would endorse them. You can’t make a serious argument that there have been many qualified conservatives running in this area. The quality of the candidates and the shift to the extreme right by the Republican party speaks more to why the Merc rarely endorses a conservative candidate—they don’t represent the mainstream in general and certainly not here in the Bay Area.
    The Merc did endorse the Republican candidate for Insurance Commissioner, Steve Poizner (http://www.joinsteve.com/news/Read.aspx?ID=76)
    So, you don’t like the paper, don’t buy it. Most of us get our news from a variety of sources and always have. The Merc is one source. It will probably get worse as a source and many will stop reading/subscribing but not because of so-called bias. Just because you don’t like the news doesn’t mean it is biased.

  33. At Any moment, I expect to see Jay Harris step into a phone booth and come flying out to save the Daily Planet.
      Where are you Superman?
      This Village was happy and triving until Lex Luther Ridder discovered kriptonite.

        The Village BlackSmith

  34. Though we get most of our news online, we hang on to our Merc subscription to review yesterday’s news,  read the comics and do the crossword.

    And because occasionally there is a gem – such as the following from the article about the new diet drug Alli:

    “Then there are the side effects, which can include oily discharge, diarrhea and uncontrollable bowel movements significant enough for the company to recommend carrying an extra pair of pants until users have acclimated to the drug.”

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