Personal hardships should not be news!
Posted by Tony on Oct 12, 2009 in Business, Community, Entertainment, Gossip, Housing, People, Personal |
I think it’s really sad when a newspaper that has the choice chooses to publish things such as foreclosures, civil suits etc…. I know its public information but why the hell do they have to publish it. These people are going through enough already and really don’t deserve to have their names printed in the paper just to add more hurt to their already bad situation.….I know there are those nosy bodies that just gotta know but let them go to the courthouse and look it up. If that’s what it takes to sell a paper maybe I’ll just cancel my subscription. Does anybody else see it this way…..
I agree! Criminal matters are one thing, but adding public shame to financial hardship and emotional heartbreak is not only mean-spirited, it’s downright un-Christian!
I also have a problem with this practice. As far as I am concerned any decent newspaper should print only the following four bits of personal information: marriage licences, births notices, death notices, and divorce decrees. However, the poor excuse of our paper claims that they are free to publish anything that happens at the Court House. To me that signifies that the publisher and the editor are too lazy, or too cheap, to do any real repertorial work. Once, at a meeting which was being attended by one of their reporters, I told them that if I were thinking of moving to Poteau, or of bringing some new business to this area, I would reconsider. The reason? The front page is always full of news about drugs or just plain criminal activity carried out by our inept criminals. I wish we had a good paper in the area; right not, if I want to read anything about Poteau I have to read it in the Fort Smith paper. How sad. And, yes. I do not enjoy reading that a friend, or a neighbor, or just someone in my adopted town, is having a bad financial time. Maybe the publishers think that we like to gloat over people having a hard time economically, I find such assumption to be highly offensive.
Good points, Traveler! I remember too many times when the front page was filled with “transcripts” of crime reports. In one particularly heinous instance, it involved the rape of a minor with graphic details that no trained journalist would have included.
It would be nice to have a local paper that focused on state and local issues. Yes, that would include “the good, the bad and the ugly,” but presented in a professional manner.
I would also like to see a regularly placed area devoted to events going on in LeFlore County. It wouldn’t take many column inches to include such a service.
I also agree, I don’t really even read the paper much anymore. I get much more relevant news from twitter and Facebook anyway