The San Jose Mercury News is beginning to remind me of one of those aging Hollywood stars—male and female—who convince themselves that they are once again youthfully beautiful with their pumped-up lips and reconstructive plastic surgery, but actually resemble the “Phantom of the Opera” or Jack Nicholson’s “Joker” to everyone else. More plastic surgery won’t reverse the disastrous facial consequences to sixties TV stars, and a new editor-in-chief—the third in the past few months—from the corporate bowels of Denver-based MediaNews won’t fix their science experiment gone bad. And just like the old movie stars that do nothing and insist on aging naturally, the San Francisco Chronicle is now winning the Bay Area newspaper beauty contest. Go figure.
The Mercury News is no longer a traditional, public-service community newspaper. The distant corporate masters want it to be something else, so they are using us, the San Jose public, as lab mice in their little experiment (christened the “Rethinking” project) to find a new, more highly profitable model. Whatever that turns out to be, they obviously want it to make the greatest profit possible from giving the least amount of original content and information to the community. Why should we play along and pay for it too?
The front section of the daily consists almost entirely of ads with a few reprinted, sometimes days-old, off-the-wire stories from the New York Times, L.A. Times and A.P. The local news staff and investigative reporting has been severely reduced to a minimum and the “Valley” section has more space devoted to obituaries than San Jose news, all of which could fit on one page that is half advertising. There is no longer a real “Business” section as such (it has a different name but I can never remember what it is), which is too bad because in the old Knight Ridder days, this is where you could get juicy details about all the latest Wall Street scandals, like Enron and WorldCom.
The rest of the daily paper (outside of a noticeably shorter “Sports” section) has been compressed, further minimized in content, and on some days is known as “SV Life.” On Wednesdays, this consists of about 60 percent advertising with a few recipes interspersed with TV and movie listings, fewer and fewer comics, and whatever else didn’t make it into the other sections. You can see why they don’t call it the “Arts” section anymore. (The puzzles that used to appear with the comics don’t seem to be anywhere, although I am told they can be found somewhere in the “Classified Ads” section.) The “Eye” weekly pullout ceased to be useful when they moved it to Thursday and took the movie reviews out of it. Now it has the comics too.
The Sunday edition has undergone the most radical reconstructive surgery with unfortunate consequences. The old six-page Sunday “Comics” section has been pillaged; two pages of comics have been dumped and replaced with advertising. They have recently dispensed with the “Opinion” section and many other features that made the Sunday Mercury News worth buying. Like many South Bay residents, I have switched to the Chronicle now. The quality may not be top notch, but at least it’s a real Sunday newspaper with its large pink arts and entertainment pullout and separate lengthy “Opinion” and “Book Review” sections, etc.
If you want to read some real San Jose investigative journalism and edgy local news scoops, you are much better off with the weekly Metro. They have some excellent young writers like Vrinda Normand, and cartoonists like DiCinzo who get under the skin of local issues, something the Mercury News has given up on.
The Mercury News doesn’t need another corporate plastic surgeon to carry on the failed experiment. It desperately needs a miracle-worker real doctor who can bring it back to life.
Joe Gillis: You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
Norma Desmond: I *am* big. It’s the *pictures* that got small.
Jack, I feel your pain. When I’m sad I like to sit in my apartment and sip a cup of tea and listen to Andy Gibb songs. “Shadow Dancing”, “Love Is Thicker Than Water” and “Our Love Don’t Throw It All Away” are good songs.
My favorite Andy Gibb songs are “An Everlasting Love” and “I Just Want To Be Your Everything”
I think if each of us tried to recapture the greatness of the 1977 through 1979 era in America, the Mercury News would rise to greatness again. If this is not possible, then our only hope is for the Chinese to take over the Mercury News.
I think the next time I get hit up by the Chronicle, I’m going to make the switch.
I am floored by the ruthless decimation of the Mercury courtesy of Media News. We all knew this was coming, but I don’t think any of us thought it would be so swift and dramatic.
It’s really sad that a combination of individual and corporate greed could so quickly and effectively mutilate what was once an award-winning publication.
I don’t follow the stock market. Does anyone know if that a-hole KR stockholder who prompted the sale of the Merc is financially any better off owning shares of Media News now?
Jack, you`ve got to be kidding ! The Metro, the spin doctor, the porn journal. The SVLG spin doctor @ City Hall on Sunshine reform. Another SVLG Lobbiest @ City Hall.
Jack just read some of their reports on BART and the costs to build BART. “Spin-Spin-Spin”. If you believe the Metro,“BART is the hottest thing since buttered popcorn”.
It`s more of “agree with me or your my enemy reporting” !!
Well, Van Zandt’s musings remind me of the Billy Boys supporting the San Jose Inside’s contanst pro Reed drivel.
Hey, I LOVE the new Mercury. Thanks to recent changes you don’t waste a lot of time reading any news!
Jack – thanks for telling it like it is – I was a subscriber of the Merc for over 30 years. When I sent an email to customer service a few months ago explaining why I was cancelling my subscription, I received an email back saying that because of “heavy demand they couldn’t respond to individual emails.” Two weeks later someone called. Since I also subscribed to the Sunday New York Times I opted to receive the Times daily and check the Merc’s website for local news. I suffered withdrawal for a few days but got over it. I wonder how many other people actually cancelled their subscriptions.
Great points, Jack. The only value add that the MN can provide to the community is the coverage of local issues and events, or how national issues impact us locally—the rest is thoroughly covered by the national media far better than the MN could ever do. No one wants to pay to read re-prints of the AP wire—we get that for free, far faster, from hundreds of Internet-based sources. So why do the owners cut the local staff to the bone? It must be because they’re clueless to the true value proposition that a local newspaper provides.
Unfortunately, I expect that the MN will have to “die” before it can be re-born and embrace the modern market.
Jack:
The MERC never should have dropped the Sunday Perspective section. And now, they have trimmed their daily offering of op ed pieces by placing an ad on the letter’s page.
I think that one of the paper’s biggest problems is that they don’t have anyone with views right of center. And, if you want to understand the paper’s frame of reference, just read their goofy mission statement. It’s not about NEWS gathering anymore, it’s about celebrating technology and diversity…or something like that.
Pete Campbell
Nobody is saying that the Metro is a good source for hard news stories, but I agree with Jack that it often provides good investigative stories and edgy local news scoops. I’ve been learning more by reading “The Fly” (which btw can revert back to “Public Eye” now that the Merc has dropped the “Eye” monicker for its “weakly” entertainment section) than I could ever learn from the Merc anymore. Once the Merc trashed the “Perspective” section, the Metro’s “Fly” became the only source in town for this sort of reading.
My wallet gives the Mercury News the same wide berth one gives to Oakland Raiders home games at the Coliseum. This is due to much of its biased reporting. Case in point: the recent story of the 20th anniversary of light rail…
http://tinyurl.com/2hefor
Direct quotes from Carl G. and VTA General Manager Burns praising light rail and its current ridership but no direct quote from anyone critical of our light rail system. Instead those critical of light rail are relegated to a one-sentence paraphrase.
Reading the SVLG’s membership list answered all of my questions about the bias:
http://www.svlg.net/about/members.php
Local media heavies who are members of the SVLG include:
* Empire Broadcasting (owner of KLIV and KRTY)
* Action 36 Cable 6 (TV)
* Comcast
* Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal
and of course the Mercury News.
I plan on having comments from a critic of light rail who the Mercury News chose to ignore on my group’s web site this evening. Stay tuned…
Richard, You may have a point, but let’s see.
Jack, re: “investigative journalism and edgy local news scoops, you are much better off with the weekly Metro.”
Let’s ask the Metro and Merc to dig into the cost-benefit-alternative issue as it applies to the City of San Jose (see below) and see how deep they dig, what they turn up, and what will be published before the voters have to vote on it.
Tom, SVLG, VTA Board, SJ City Council:
Lay out for us what it will cost to bring BART to San Jose…
—membership fee to join BART; ie. $/yr for how many years
—latest construction costs estimates
—operating costs yr/yr net after ridership revenue going forward
—ridership projections: min-max over the next 10, 20yrs
Ed Rast, Richard, VTA, SJ Council, Staff others:
Lay out for us what it would coast to beef up our City /County transportation infrastructure to improve quality of live here in SCC / SJ
—latest construction costs estimates
—operating costs yr/yr net after ridership revenue
—ridership projections: min-max over the next 10, 20yrs
Mayor, City Manager, staff:
Calculate the difference between these two yr/yr for the next 10/20yrs and if less, tell us how that could translate to:
—more local infrastructure jobs
—increased SJPD staffing
—increased DOT budget for fixing roads and calming traffic
—increased Park & Rec staffing
—dealing with the structural deficit and improving other quality of life factors in San Jose
#10 Mark
You hit it on the head. The Fly is a better source of local information than anything in the Merc. And as limited as a weekly format is, at least the Metro has actual reporters doing investigative stories for the benefit of public knowledge. Like every other large city, there is corrpution, graft and nepotism going on here all day every day but you wouldn’t know it from reading the Merc.
#4 Richard
You may not like the Metro’s opinion on BART but at least they are talking about it!
Also the Metro gives a lot of support to community arts and other events. The Merc’s Denver masters cut off the considerable local philanthropy of the Knight Ridder days as their first order of business.
Jack,
I notice you mention the SVLG; are they a lobby group?
— Do they have or are they pressing an agenda that involves public policy or spending?
— Do they have any representatives working in or around SJ City Hall?
— Are they registered with the City as a lobby group or interest?
How interesting that so many bloggers are suddenly finding that the Murky is birdcage liner. It always has been: Joe Ridder lead the fight to keep BART out of San Jose—afraid his influence would be diminished. Nader came to town with his Raiders in the 60’s to find out who owned San Jose, but couldn’t because Don Edwards’ Valley Title had a process for hiding ownership. No investigation of Edwards’ sneaky operation. Years before that, when San Jose Water Works owned the city and the county and with their armed guards closed the road from Los Gatos to Wrights Station so they could buy suddenly inaccessible property in a tax sale, the Murky only printed the pix of the barricade—no investigation. The Soups and the Judges bought by SJWW wouldn’t allow it. All that aside, the writing has, for years, stunk. The Herb Caen of the Murky would be? And for years, and now, the Murky is expert on EVERY subject, from cancer to popcorn, and ALL the “correspondents” write about themselves—why UC Berkeley for years kept dissolving the Journalism Dept. One read of the LA or NY Times—or the Anderson Valley Advertiser—and it’s time to gag the next time you pick up the Murky—with it’s cute little story headlines, always alliterative: Tough Tiger Tooths Teens, etc. Right now the Chron has a feature: “What’s screwed up in your neighborhood, Who’s responsible for fixing it, What are they actually doing about it”, with pictures and phone #s. Inconceivable the Murky would think up something so useful. Action Line, sometimes, and Food and Wine are the best they can do, though Laurie Daniels persona is front and center. Good thing that even the Murky readers for years have ignored the paper’s recommendations for public office, unless they were incumbents. (And they still havent come up with the total cost of Shitty Hall, though we all keep asking for it.) George Green
The Merc is garbage with no passion for downtown. When was the last time Merc. devoted their reporting to downtown? I think it was back in 1994 when they has a nice spread on the return of the city’s investment on downtown, but it was in “work in progress” stage with us being in the dark presently. That’s last time they focused on downtown. Today, we don’t know how downtown SJ is doing because there’s no accountability on part of the Mercury News. They’re neglecting downtown and the whole community. They’re(Merc) a disaster!
Big business news: Wall St Journal
Editorials on national politics: Wall St Journal.
Technology news: TechCrunch, Valleywag, other blogs
Local paper: SJMN online—they make google ad money from it, so I’m not ashamed of not buying a paper
Real dish on local politics: Metro
I’d love to see hard news muckraking and some accountability for local elected officials.
In the age of the web, though, maybe the dead tree model just doesn’t work very well here anymore. It takes a lot of ads to spread out production costs, and most of us spend a lot more time online than we do with a newspaper open in front of us.
Jack,
In essance you have endorced the METRO as a place to go for good investigative journalism and local news.
You said,”…when you want some real San Jose investigative journalism…and edgy local news scoops, you are much better off with the weekly METRO…”
You went on to say,”…and, they have some excellent young writters…who get under the skin of local issues”.
Before I respond, George Orwell said,“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolunionary act”.
Where do we turn for the truth and good investigative reporting ? You are telling us the METRO. I am not defending the Merc`s investigative reporting either.
Barry Witt`s reporting on BART/VTA is simply a ditto after you read the METRO`s last write up on BART/VTA. The reporting seems like they came from the same source.
Repeating the METRO`s close ties to the SVLG make their reporting on BART lacking anything close to, as you said is,“real San Jose investigative reporting”. Jack the METRO has a conflict of interest when reporting on BART and VTA. Who is SVLG`s representative on the Sunshine Reform Committee? Do you know?
Where do we turn for the truth Jack?
I`d like you to read the last article in the Metro re: BART, come back to us on S J I and tell us what is missing.
Do you think you could contact one of those reporters at the METRO and have him read all the questions raised on Tom, John and Norman Klines recent headings and come back to us in print and reveal the truth in writting in the METRO ? Please reply.
If you can do that Jack and the reporter will print the truth in the METRO, then I will give you a retraction and apologize. Deal???
Jack who doesn`t the SVLG control in the media? Where do the citizens of San Jose go to get all the facts?
As I’ve said before on this site, The Mercury was a yellow journalistic rag, I cancelled in 2001 and have never regretted it. For years many of their stories have been biased, Fallon statue for one. Unfortunately, many who read it, think what is in print is the truth and believe it. Just shows the old adage, the power of the press, is true. Glad that there are so many discriminating people on this site.
Jack,
The Metro is an entertainment media. They should support community arts and other events. Thats their job, that`s what their advertizers pay a lot of money for.
Regarding their best of San Jose reporting in dinning, this is a helpful tool also. I wish their reporter knew a little more about restaurants. For example the best Italian restaurant, “Maggiano`s”, I think we have many excellent Italian restaurants in San Jose.
Maggiano`s and Olive Garden are “Theme restaurants”not Italian restaurants. Maggiano has a Chicago club theme. Maybe they should have a catagory for theme restaurants, I`d vote for Maggiano`s as best theme restaurant.
Don`t take any visitors from our City sister county (Florence,Italy) to dinner at Maggiano`s and tell them this is our best Italian restaurant.
The Metro is a good entertainment magazine.
#11 Eugene Bradley,
I think you should add the METRO to your list of SVLG inspired publications.
Who do the residents of San Jose turn to to get all the facts on BART and VTA ?
I was thinking of our local Chamber of Commerce but, 25 members of their board are members of the SVLG. Where do we turn to get all the facts?
I believe we have many voices (endorcers of BART) that are one in the same. Many endorcements, but are they differant ?
Local paper: SJMN online
Online news is unacceptable as a total substitute for a newspaper. At best, it is a complementary addition for a newspaper.
While online news has its place for quick glances while at work, or for out of town reading, a successful newspaper is printed on paper, delivered to your home, and has in-depth articles on both current events, and items of general interest; for example, articles going into detail explaining the latest research in some scientific area.
With a newspaper one can relax in a comfortable setting, read it at a leisurely pace, and actually think about the content. Online news is tiring on the eyes, requires the reader to be chained to the screen, does not provide sufficient information, and is geared towards individuals with short attention spans.
Its bad enough having to read blogs, and other sites, online without the Mercury News adding to the problem.
The Chronicle gets it. They have an in-depth article nearly every day. They give extensive coverage of international, national, and local news. While it is possible to find all this information online, the online news is irrelevant in regard to the role of a newspaper.
As said, requiring the reader to be chained to a computer screen is unacceptable.
Has anyone ever been to the Mercury News web-site? It has to be one of the most poorly designed web-pages in the history of the universe. It loads so slow as to be painful. And that is with a DSL line. While on vacation last year I was forced to access it via a 56kbs modem, and it was excruciatingly unbearable.
If I was forced to only get the news online the Mercury News web-site would be the last place that I would visit.
So, the Mercury News can either expand their print coverage, provide more detail in their stories, restrict their web-page to breaking news blurbs and archived articles for future research, or they can go out of business.
The choice is theirs.
#18- Richard, you asked, “Where do we turn for the truth Jack?” Truth in the media? Honest reporting of the facts? Sorry that isn’t and never has been the case. I studied journalism in college, and was an Editor of my college newspaper, when I was 27. There are so many special interest groups, so much politics involved in what we really get to hear about that it’s rather frightening. Case in point, we never really have seen or heard the truth about 911. And we never will thanks to our governments control over these types of events.
The Metro is fun to read, but I think it’s nothing short of a porn rag. It contains pages upon pages of illegal sex ads, and many fake employment ads. If you report to the Metro that a job ad is fraudulent, they don’t pull the ad or even investigate it. It’s all about the money.
I agree with you Jack, the Merc is sadly lacking in credible reporting, or interesting up to date stories. I find their Editorials to be an emotional rat hole filled with personal bias, staged to look like intelligent reporting of the facts with a twist of personal opinion thrown in to make it believable. The Merc has always supported illegal immigration, and written story upon story trying to shame those of us who don’t agree that illegals deserve special treatment, grants for college, or things that legal residents can’t get.
Every time the Merc has interviewed me on an animal or political issue, I find that my words were twisted, or important facts left out in favor of what the Merc wants to support. At a recent event regarding opening Police reports to the public, I attended and I spoke out against it. I had a Merc reporter run up and ask if she could have my name and quote me, I of course said no. She asked why and I told her that I knew exactly how I’d be made to look in the article. She looked a bit shocked and walked a way.
I don’t think the SF Chronicle is any better. It’s all about the money. Gone are the good old days of integrity in reporting. I mean look how much press Britney Spears gets, and how little reporting of how badly our war Vets are being treated by this Administration. It’s all about what’s popular, what sells the most papers, not about what is really going on in our City, or country. So Richard in answer to your question to Jack, truth is relative. All you can do is research differnt sources of information, and try to distinguish between fact and fiction as best you can. If you think I’m kidding try to figure out what Prop 93 on our ballets is all about. Give up and call the Registrar of Voters, or just vote NO~
#22
You are so right in your criticisms of the Merc website. It is the worst news site on the internet and completely unusable. Like you point out, it takes forever to load each and every page and you could spend an hour just navigating through a few articles. It’s ridiculous considering that the Merc considers itself the voice of Silicon Valley.
#23 Kathleen
Good points on the Merc. Don’t get me started on some of the idiotic stuff they publish as editorial opinion and the chronic misquotes (it’s happened to me too).
#18 Richard Zappelli
You brought up SVLC. I didn’t even mention it. The Metro isn’t the issue and neither is BART which I have no intention of discussing here. With all due respect, this discussion is about the community’s views on the Mercury News. Let’s stick to that.
#23 Kathleen,
Thank you for your considerate response, it was very thoughtful.
I have a lot of respect for Tom,John and Jack. Pierluigi too!!!
I like Jack and hate to see him stick his neck out for the Metro as he did.
Those of us on San Jose Inside raise a lot of quality questions. Many of us care a lot about San Jose. Like Tom and John , our families go back a long time in San jose history. We care a lot about San Jose`s future.
They have along with other downtown San Jose people have done a bueatiful job rebuilding the downtown area. S J is in need of more jobs and more sales tax revenues to pay for City services. Our new downtown has the ability to become one of the biggest revenue money makers in the county when fully developed.
Many downtown businesses are in need of more evening business to become trully valued businesses. We need more people downtown at night, we need more downtown residents that live and spend money downtown. We need a major hotel on the vacant lot across from Il Fornaio. Hotels are people gnerators.
Downtown has quality restaurants. When compared to those restaurants in Santana Row
as people do, Santana Row has middle market restaurants. Downtown is more upscale. SR`s restaurants are chain restaurants. The downtown owners are mostly independant locally owned by people that too care about San Jose`s success.
I question the SVLG`s recent motovations and their bully attitudes when smart people question SVLG leaders with intelligent questions.
The Merc, the Metro both lack good people to dig out the fact on BART and VTA`s financial commitment to BART. I wonder what has happened to our chamber of Commerce when I see the Board members that are also members of SVLG. All these people speek to the residents and voters of San Jose as seperate interest groups when in fact they are all one in the same voice.
It seems the voters are being blocked from getting all the facts about BART and VTA. They vote on what SVLG and its team members want them to hear, not the facts.
Some of the financial facts coming out on San Jose Inside sound very scary.
Developers and some Silicon Valley companies have purchased large amounts of land in Southern Alameda County, land that is a lot cheeper than Santa Clara County land, land that they want to develop and make bigger profits on than they can make her in San Jose. To do this they need BART built from san Jose to Warm Springs and Union City at our expense.
These people don`t care about our grid lock problems, they don`t care if BART has the ability to Bankrupt VTA. They just want to move more jobs out of San Jose to the neighboring county.
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#24 Jack
Good Idea ! Why hasn`t the Mercury News printed all the facts to the Community regarding BART? I have a problem with Barry witts last write up on BART. The Community is entilted to ,“good investigative journalism” on this subject.
You brought up the METRO first. I simply responded to your comment.
#26 Richard
I appreciate all your comments today on this issue.
You have put your finger on the primary question with the MediaNews Merc: Why aren’t they investigating and presenting the facts and all shades of opinion on the whole enormous list of outstanding issues (including BART) of interest to the community? The reason is that the paper has been taken over by the corporate pod people from another planet who don’t give a damn about the San Jose public except for how much blood they can squeeze out of us. (Remember the Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man?”) It’s all about Wall Street, not Santa Clara Street.
Our local situation is a mere microcosm of the problems we face with the growing corporate media control in America that is being made worse by the Bushite robot in charge of the FCC. The days of the reliable, conscientious, independent national news source acting in the public interest are over. It’s now a GE Disney TimeWarner Rupert Murdoch MediaNews world.
In light of the national situation, the Orwell quote in your response #18 is particularly apposite.
#27- Very, very well stated Jack. Hence the need for blogs like this!
The most frightening aspect for me is the immense power, and control the media has over elections, legislation, and information distribution to the public. Look how the media portrays San Jose, even when the City pays them to do favorable stories, or ads for them!
During campaigns, one story with misinformation can win or lose someone an office. Or a slanted story on a crime can convict or get off an innocent, or guilty person, or even affect how people vote on a measure! If you look at what is being reported and what is not, it can cause you to scream.
I have seen hate crimes go unreported, or watch our injured Vets return from war only to become homeless, and lose their families. I have seen seniors go hungry, animals killed by the millions in shelters because they aren’t being spayed/neutered, children abused and dumped, disabled people on housing losing their Section 8 vouchers because Legal Aid and other programs designed to protect them, are short staffed and under budgeted. I have watched taxes raised on homeowners to assist the County and City fill in their bad spending, and budget decisions, and rents go through the roof because landlords aren’t held to Rent Control Ordinances. The list of vital, reportable stories is endless.
Do you ever read about those things in the Merc? No, you read Britney Spears vacationing in Mexico, or nine or ten articles on the same topic everyday. When on earth are important issues like the ones I’ve stated above, or on SJI ever going to be addressed by the media? Probably when hell freezes over~
Jack, your comments above reflect a pretty self-righteous attitude about getting every side of issues and presenting facts fairly. But how can you ask for evenhandedness and fairness when you recently bloviated on the subject of bringing some democracy to the Berryessa school district.
As I recall, you not only didn’t contact one side to learn why more democracy was needed, you sank directly to the lowest level of all…name-calling. It seems to me that I recall your relying on the label “numbskulls” to rebut an argument about which you knew nothing.
Your little effort at “investigative” reporting on a very local & very important issue shows that you really support very different standards for different persons.
Just how does your own conduct justify your demanding a higher standard by the Merc? Maybe you’re getting the standard at the Merc that you deserve.
Some times in one’s life, the confort of a morning coffee and a news paper can solve a lot of issues from within. It’s the start of one’s day thing. A personal experience.
Concider the amount of ink and paper that has been used to print the war in Iraq alone. That’s a lot of trees and a lot of linseed oil.
A few short years ago, I spent my first hour of my day on a stationary bike, a cup of decaf and the Chron and Merc. took me 60 minutes. On Thursday with metro 80 minutes. After Jay left, I saw a slide. After Chip left, I saw the beginning of the end.
For the past year now I get an extra hour sleep and join a few other guys for walks 4 days a week 5 miles each day. That has become my way of gathering my information. I enjoy this method much more and get different subject from different perspectives.
Some times I relapse and actually spend 50 cents for a merc when I can’t find one at the athletic club after my walks. The chron gave me a deal but usually don’t deliver until after I’ve left my home and so it largly goes unread.
The hispanic publications have gone to the spanish language format. Some years ago Yolanda Renolds was great reading. I miss her insightful articals especially when it was about a politicion or city hall matters.
The change has been very benificial. I feel much better. I’ve developed a common sence about my community. I know for instance that the things I care about were largely ignored, Now I am more determinded personally to doing what I can to do help my community. Building awareness to the horrors of lead poisoning in our baby’s under 6 years of age.
Yep that t shirt in Garberville changed my life. It simply stated,
“Stop Bitching, Start a Revolution!”
The printed word is a powerful method of communicating.
The Village Black Smith
#30 Jack re: “I am not a journalist. I am an ordinary citizen expressing my own opinion just the same as you. “
I understand; me too. And this is what is beginning to bother me. Too many things in world are in the hands of “ordinary citizens who are just expressing their opinion.
Budgets aren’t balanced by surgeons and diseases cured by accountants. Unfortunately our system is not perfect and we sometimes have people making decisions about things they don’t fully understand. And it seems like the more money at stake, the less we understand about how to spend it responsibly.
#29 Dale
I am not a journalist. I am an ordinary citizen expressing my own opinion just the same as you. This isn’t a newspaper but a privately owned website that provides the community with a forum to discuss matters of concern.
We welcome all seriously considered views here whether we agree with them or not, including yours. You got plenty of space here to counter my view of your misguided efforts in Berryessa which you took full advantage of. Our readers made up their own minds about it. That’s how this is supposed to work.
I apologize for previously calling you a “numbskull.” It was wrong of me to do so. My opinion was and is that you are just plain wrong on the Berryessa issue and I should have left it as that.
Now what do YOU think about what the Mercury News has become?
Jack, we know people at the Merc check out SJI, as I’ve seen reports in the Merc about what has appeared in SJI over the course of a given week.
Do you perhaps intend to formally submit the contents of this thread to the Merc for their review? I suspect we are preaching to the choir re: the Merc employees whose job includes checking out SJI and reporting on any content that might make for good copy, but the Merc’s leadership and indeed the jokers in Denver need to know how many Merc subscribers who have been loyal over the years are now ready to defect to the Chronicle or have already done so.
I also agree with #22’s statements about online vs an actual paper. I don’t haul a laptop to lunch with me, and I don’t think I’ll ever abandon the practice of enjoying my morning coffee at home while relaxing and reading the paper on the weekend. Some things are just sacred, and for me this is one of them. The only thing that is likely to change is that I’ll be reading the Chronicle on those weekend mornings instead of the Merc before too long.
The best local reporting used to be out of the Daily News Group. Then the Mercury News bought them, and slashed local reporting at both papers.
Same thing happened with the Chronicle and the Examiner.
It’s time to prohibit consolidation of paper ownership.
Let’s not just stop at the problems with consolidation of newspaper ownership. The rest of the media need to be included also. To wit: how many radio stations in the Bay Area are NOT owned by Clear Channel?
Also interesting in today’s paper is the article about NBC looking to purchase KRON again, as Young Brodcasting, who outbid NBC and for KRON several years back and prompted NBC to switch their affiliation over to KNTV, is now putting the station up for sale. It seems that NBC would prefer to put things back as they were and dump KNTV. Maybe San Jose will get its own station back as a result. Doug and Maggie, start primping!
As a lifelong Bay Area resident, it is ingrained in me to tune the TV to channel 4 for NBC, and I still find myself doing it a lot. I would welcome NBC’s return to KRON for this simple reason alone. NBC may also be hanging onto old school early TV logic that the lower the channel number is, the better. Casual observation of affiliations in the larger TV markets seems to indicate the channel locations of the major networks are rarely higher than 7. I suspect being relegated to the double digits is something NBC wants to correct, along with shedding all the confusion over the channel being 11 if you’re receiving it over the air, but it’s 3 if you’re getting it via cable. I’m sure that’s been a major annoyance to NBC from the get go.
This is 2008. Who is getting TV over the air?
Turk, there still are plenty of people who are getting their signals over the air, and via TV sets with non-digital tuning systems. Just sit back and watch the feeding frenzy over the vouchers for digital converter boxes as we get closer to February 2009 when the analog over-the-air transmissions go dark.
Some households may only have one TV hooked up to cable and the rest to a rooftop antenna. My mom’s is such a place. You have to remember what room you are in before tuning in NBC.
Though Merc can make their website better I don’t find it appalling to read. It serves it purpose and if they are smart about it they can get more people to go to it by tilting heavily to local coverage. In this environment they need to stop being a national newspaper and cover silicon valley/SJ more.
I am not among those who thought the Murky News was ever much of a newspaper. Those who knew Tony Ridder wax poetic about him…but that’s what freinds are for. I see him as the guy who ran a mediocre paper and gave us that huge butt ugly sign on top of the Fairmont Tower office building.
The lines between opinion/editorial perspective and news has been blurred since I came here in the mid-70s.
SJ is a middling market for newspapers.
Newspapers are becoming like the dinosaurs—soon to be extinct, except for the best. Even that is changing, perhaps, with the purchase of the Wall Street Journal.
News has shifted to entertainment. Endless crap about Britney/Lindsay/Paris in all media keeps getting spewed out because it gets ratings. If everyone truly hated it, we wouldn’t see it any longer.
News will increasingly be obtained on-line or through non-paper media. Papers in middling markets like ours are “dead men walking”, except for a few like Mark T. who still like the paper for news.
But Mark, there hardly is any news in the “news”paper these days.
The fact that the general public is so easily manipulated as Kathleen #28 pointed out,
shows what a nation of unquestioning sheep we have become.
Re: Posting #11
I see the gentleman from Santa Cruz is once again commenting on Santa Clara County’s public transit system. May I inquire, who, beyond Eugene Bradley’s mother, is a member of the VTA Riders Union? Its not like it ever has meetings or publishes a list of endorsers…
#39
Take the time to learn a little about Eugene Bradley and you won`t go off making such a unthoughtful comment. Do a little research next time.
Eugene is very knowledgeable about “rail” and VTA and he lived in Santa Clara County and was very active with VTA at the time. You should give your Cunty as much free time as he has. Do your homework.
JMO, old habits die hard. It used to be, at least in my opinion, that the paper was a much better source than TV news. Now it seems the Merc has taken a nosedive without passing “GO” (in this example, aka TV news caliber content) straight down to the low brow level of “Extra” and “Access Hollywood.”
Once again this last weekend we had sports hijacking the front page above the fold with a surfer riding a wave, yet no accompanying story anywhere in that section. I suspect not even Surf City’s own Sentinel devoted front page space to this niche sporting event. Or has Media News swallowed up the Sentinel also? I’ve forgotten, and if that’s the case, then they probably had a giant wave photo above the fold also. San Jose Today, Santa Cruz Today, it’s all good as far as Media News is concerned.
The Merc’s Julia Prodis does get points for an excellent expose on the true colors of the screw-up dudes that most certainly were up to no good at the SF zoo on 12/25, and I am hoping any legal attempt at monetary gain by these jokers courtesy of the City of SF as a result of their own stupidity is thrown out. As one person who was interviewed pointed out, there are people passing by and viewing the tigers at the zoo 365 days a year and neither Tatiana or any of her pals have ever been inclined to lunge at them.
At some point my level of disgust will cause me to forego the weekend tradition of coffee and the paper. It will take some getting used to, the practice of substituting my laptop for an actual paper, but that’s definitely where things are headed. Most certainly I won’t be hitting on the Merc’s web site. As has been stated, it is a navigational nightmare and an excellent indicator of how much the Merc truly cares about providing a quality on line experience.
Richard (posting 40 above),
No need for me to do research on Eugene Bradley; he talks more at public meetings than do some of the board members.
I generally listen to what he has to say—some of it is valid—but have to roll my eyes when he notes he represents the VTA Riders Union. The known membership is now up to three: Eugene, his mother and apparently Richard Zappelli.
I’m all for free and open dialogue but this thing of claiming masses of people agree with him is, well, weird.
#43 (and all other interested parties):
Instead of taking the easy way out (like our politicians do) and whining about who’s in my group, be a part of it and join the revolution.
The most efficient way I found to run my group is thru our email list. You can join it by visiting this URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vtaridersunion/
and clicking on the “Join This Group” link. You’ll find a few more people who are involved than you think.
#43 and #45,
Thank you Eugene. #45, “Mystery person”, for all I know you could be Carl Gardino. Like it or not, I respect your opinion as do most of us. I don`t mind your poking needles in me but, at least when you do, let me know whom I`m dealing with.
I just have a problem with people that “control” the media and have all our elected politicians running for cover all the time. Dare our elected politicians disagree with the leaders of the SVLG for fear they (SVLG) will put up another candidate and spend all kinds of money destroying anyone that dares to disagree with them. Get my point?
#43
Thank you for pointing out”The VTA Riders Union site”. Any information I can get to help me make a good decision on BART to the East Bay would be nice. We`ve all read the SVLG`s opinion on the subject, “thats all that is out there for the public to read”.
By the way do you have a real name? Just “happy bus rider in Santa Clara”?
Do you just enjoy bashing people?
Another pathetic cheap shot by the San Jose Mercury at the SJPD.
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_8046491#recent_comm
I mentioned earlier that I cancelled my subscription to the Merc but still read it at their website. It might be a coincidence but for the last few days I have had to log in daily just to read an article. Is it just me? Yes, I still have “remember me on this computer” checked.
#48- It’s not just you. I have to login in almost every two days.