The Star Tribune began a series called "Puck Dreams" on Sunday. It follows 15-year-old Nick Mattson of Chanhassen as he moves to Ann Arbor to join a traveling all-star hockey team.
Now, I have become inured to the fact that our local papers give over inordinate amounts of their front pages to stories of questionable news value. (It's not just the Strib, either -- extreme sports and wrestling graced the fronts of the PiPress for several days in recent months, if I recall correctly.)
But I realized this hockey story was sinking to new depths when I read the little "About this Story" box today. It said:
Reporter Rachel Blount and photographer Jerry Holt spent five months (emphasis added) following Nick Mattson, spending time with him at home in Chanhassen, in Ann Arbor, Mich., and on the road in Russia...Five months? FIVE MONTHS? Using up the talents of two of the remaining editorial staffers still in the newsroom despite the Newspaper Diaspora? On a story that has nothing to do with investigative journalism or anything else of value?
I mean, geez, it's not even a story about someone recovering from cancer or whatever other human interest story the powers-that-be decide to use to wring the readers' emotions.
And not only five months of two people's time, but this is a five-part series taking up some seven or eight pages of the paper by the time it's over.
If the Star Tribune's editors can't think of a better use for those pages, maybe they should join the Newspaper Diaspora.
1 comment:
I just read the first story the other day and was appalled. How ridiculous ... such a waste of resources and energy.
I'm glad you, too, share this sentiment. Hilarious photo, btw.
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