Who’s going to cover the Helotes City Council or the Bexar Met Board?
It looks like the San Antonio Express-News is going through some belt-tightening. It’s stopping the Wednesday Neighbor Section and has cut cartoonist Leo Garza and his Nacho Guarache strip. I could claim that I’m worried about losing a prime source of material but that’s not it. (well, it is, just not in such a cynical way) As much as I rag on the Express-News and even though they sent us a cease and desist letter, I believe these cut backs are bad for San Antonio.
How much of the Helotes city council antics would be known if not for the reporting in the Express-News? What other comic strip even comes close to representing San Antonio’s unique blend of conservative and liberal elements as did Nacho Guarache? Who is going to not only report on city council actions but actually take the time and money to request the data necessary to get to the real facts?
Don’t look at me, I’m just a blogger. I may think that the Express-News often does a pathetic job at covering local events but I know I don’t have the time or money to go around and actually collect facts for reporting. I do okay with data available on the web but it’s not the same as asking public officials for their stand on the issues. The journalism process creates information that would otherwise simply not be available.
I know the newspaper business is hurting and the industry is having to rethink it’s business model. I’m willing to pay for an online subscription. Maybe not as much as for a hard copy since I get all the news with a hard copy and my family can easily browse the sections of their interest as well. Or maybe I would pay the same if I didn’t have to pay $2.95 for articles that have been archived.
The point is that no matter how the news is delivered, someone has to collect it and that’s going to cost money. Even if you get all your news online, someone else had to get it online in the first place.
Therefore, even though I think the Express-News does a cruddy job in covering certain aspects of local news which is often matched by their failure to simply not include readily available information in some of their stories, I think it’s worth my monetary support.
And if you care at all about what goes on in San Antonio, it should be worth your support as well. Ten dollars a month for a subscription:
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That’s less than what you probably spend on coffee or sodas in a week. (Yes, I support public radio too.) If you want to reduce your carbon footprint by eliminating paper production and gas used for delivery, then click on some of the ads on the mysa.com website.
Maybe one day we can get our news through micro-payments. But the fact remains that if we don’t support our “content providers” financially, there won’t be any content, just a lot of public officials conducting business without little public scrutiny.
Technorati Tags: San Antonio Express News, Leo Garza, Nacho Guarache, local news, newspaper business
Filed under: Leo Garza, Nacho Guarache, San Antonio Express News, local news, newspaper business
I don’t understand why anyone would pay for the newspaper in only an online format. The paper copy pays for itself with coupons, so it really costs nothing to get. Someone would have to develop a business model that incorporates the coupon savings into the online format, but I can’t imagine all the traditional advertisers going to a “pull” format online when they can “push” to me by stuffing my paper.
How can one be sure of the reporting if the very newspaper who’s responsible for that reporting depends on revenue from the same source that they may have to report about? It would be worth it to me if I knew that the newspaper was beholden only to its readers, and impartial regarding the facts. Advertising is the reason for most newspapers, and advertising is a “carrot,stick, donkey,go” process that tends to blend into the actual reporting, at least in my hometown paper, the “Helotes Echo”.The “Echo” views its readers as cattle to be herded into corrals and fed facts that have been “processed” into rank falsehoods by those that wish to inordinately control my town in a manner that allows the rich to feed at the public trough and at taxpayer expense.But one has to wonder, would the Express-News, for instance, honestly report on a scandal, say, at an iconic institution such as USAA? If the Trust Dept. at USAA was violating the rules in some manner and working to cover it up, would we get the truth from a paper that is basically funded by the business community of San Antonio? If you are not reading about that particular issue right now, then you can be sure that you are not getting the real news,”unprocessed”, that the people of this town needs to hear. David Galvan, Helotes
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