Sherry: I was in NY yesterday, and traveling back to Wichita. Throughout the day, there was massive TV news coverage (at least on CNN) about the release of the Colombian hostages. John McCain was involved to some degree. Certainly the story generated national attention, and parallels to the Iranian hostages were drawn. There are current hostage situations in other parts of the world, as well. I couldn’t get all the details, as I was traveling, but assumed the Eagle would have an in-depth article on the front page. I was very surprised that the article was relegated to the back page (8A) of today’s paper, with no mention of McCain’s involvement (or whether he was just grandstanding). The front page was almost all local news, including a soft article on the parks.
I am disappointed that the Eagle relegated the hostage release article to the back page, and am curious as to why. Does the Eagle think Kansans don’t care what happens on the national/international front?
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“Douglas, thanks for your note. I would be glad to talk about our philosophy of local vs. national/international news, and the factors that drove this story decision.
I have a very different perspective from what you describe in your email. Today, we ran full-length versions of six national or international news stories. We ran “briefs” of six others. We chose those six stories – from a menu of hundreds of national/international stories moved by our wire services yesterday – because we believed they were the most relevant and/or interesting news of the day from outside our region. We devoted more space to the Colombian hostage story than any other non-local article in today’s A-section. In my view, any story that rises to the top 1% or 2% of news stories available for the day isn’t being dismissed in its news value.
In addition, because readers often like to flip the newspaper over before turning inside, the back page of the A-section (whether it’s page 8, 12, 24 or whatever) is generally one of the most popularly read pages of the paper, after the front page. That’s where the hostage story was published.
We define our primary mission as highlighting local news that our readers can’t get anywhere else. While you may dismiss the parks story as “soft,” I would urge you to drive out to one of the local lakes this weekend. There you will find thousands of people who create small cities with the mass of population camping at the waterways during the summer holidays. That will explain to you why, as of lunch hour, the parks story is the sixth most-read story on our Web site.
When I plug the Colombian hostages into Google, the top sites – of dozens that have this story today – are msnbc.com, yahoo.com, nytimes.com, npr.com, cnn.com, time.com, foxnews.com. The story is available everywhere. The story describing camping conditions at the major state parks is not.
While I’m sorry you’re disappointed in the positioning of the hostage story, I’m confident that the best service the Eagle can provide for the local community we serve is to focus our finite resources – reporting power and news space – on stories our readers can’t find anywhere else.”
One Comment
Sherry –
I starting to think that you like to play favorites with the guys that send you e-mails. You responded to Doug’s e-mail, but you never responded to my e-mails. In fact the Eagle has blocked my e-mails to you and your reporters. You don’t even respond to my allegatons on your blog that the Eagle is covering up corruption and civil rights atrocites by Nola Foulston’s office and GOP judges.
It must really be demoralizing to know that your subordinates, the experts at the Poynter Institute, your former fellow jurists on the Pulitzer committee and the whole world can read this comment. However I am going to compliment you in advance for not censoring this blog entry even though the Eagle often censors my comments on the Eagle’s articles & columns.
I tried posting the following comment on Buzz Merritt’s column regarding James Dobson. The comment has not shown up although other comments have appeared. The hypocrisy, narcissism, coes of silence & the unethical activity of the Wichita’s media, its judges & bar association officials and its conservative GOP politicians are so absurd that the Eagle could make a lot money selling tickets to a public forum about the subjects of free speech and abuse of power & corruption in Wichita. I will also e-mail this comment with documentation regarding the Todd Wait scandal involving subornation of perjury & forgery by Rachel Pirner (spouse of KAKE news director DAve Grant) to Kelly McBride at Poynter, Marci Burdick at Schurz Communicaitons & Joan Barrett at Channel 12.
I don’t want to appear sexiest, BUT I want you to consider if the corruption and fascism in America is getting worse now that women are in places of high authority in the print & news media and in the judiciary (i.e. Nola Folston, Kansas Supreme Court Justice Kay McFarland & Assoicate Justice Carol Beier who is responsible for monitoirung the district courts in Wichita)? Is the unintended consequence of affirmative action programs for women that women in powerful positions are too insecure about their competencies to ethically act with courage to protect children? Are women too eager to good old boys?
THIS IS THE COMMENT THAT I POSTED:
Buzz Merritt & David Broder & the elitist narcissistic press have spent the last 35 years congratulating itself about the Watergate scandal and now practice Dan Rather – Katie Couric celebrity journalism in which the reporter is the story. Investigative reporting does not exist in the US. Americans are losing their freedoms because we care more about nanny government providing our retirement & health care security rather than protecting our constitutional rights. The “feel good” Warren Supreme Court of the 1960’s initiated a judicial movement which demonstrated that all laws were subjective and we ended up with Roe V. Wade in 1971 and Terry Bullock’s school finance Montoy case in Kansas in 2006.
In light of the recent allegations of wide spread civil rights violations by District Attorney Nola Foulston’s Office and Foulston’s glib response that Wichita attorneys have the duty and power to protect their clients from human rights abuses, I challenge Ken Canfield (Kansas Family Research Institute) and Russ Jones (Christian Chronicle) and the Wichita State University School of Communication’s brain trust(former Eagle publishers Buzz Merritt & Lou Heldman and editorial board editor, Randy Brown) to stop being self-centered blowhards and do something constructive. They should invite David Broder & Focus on the Family James Dobson to an open public forum at Wichita State to discuss whether Wichitans no longer have the constitutional right to due process and equal protection under the law and whether the journalists at the Eagle even give a damn. I bet the Wichita Eagle could sell a lot of tickets to offset its pathetic financial performance.
AS USUAL YOU CAN CONTACT ME ANY TIME. JOE LIDDLE & TODD WAIT ARE EAGER TO TELL THEIR STORY BEFORE ALLEGED CRIMINALS ARE ELECTED OR RE-ELECTED TO POSITIONS OF POWER.
BILL MCKEAN KIAKAHAHAHA@YAHOO.COM 316 293-6079