As bad as local coverage has been from The Morning Call, it's about to become virtually nonexistent. When the latest round of cuts take place in the next week or so, I'm told most of the reporters will be gone. This is great news for bad government, but very bad news for democracy.
It's already started. Veteran crime reporter Pam Lehman has found another job in Lehigh County government. Northampton County's crime reporter, who is always very thorough, is on his way out.
WFMZ-TV69 now provides better local news and sports coverage than either of the dailies, and is free.
A Morning Call editor admits, "We're going to get slimmer, there's no disputing that." But he adds, "We're not gping away at all. We want people to know we're there." He insists most reporters will still be there, and that the current buyouit only affects those with eight or more years of seniority.
Blogger's Note: Originally posted 1/30/20 at 12:00 am.
Today's one-liner: "The shortest way to the distinguishing excellence of any writer is through his hostile critics." Richard LeGallienne
Local Government TV
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Monday, February 03, 2020
58 comments:
You own views are appreciated, especially if they differ from mine. But remember, commenting is a privilege, not a right. I will delete personal attacks or off-topic remarks at my discretion. Comments that play into the tribalism that has consumed this nation will be declined. So will comments alleging voter fraud unless backed up by concrete evidence. If you attack someone personally, I expect you to identify yourself. I will delete criticisms of my comment policy, vulgarities, cut-and-paste jobs from other sources and any suggestion of violence towards anyone. I will also delete sweeping generalizations about mainstream parties or ideologies, i.e. identity politics. My decisions on these matters are made on a case by case basis, and may be affected by my mood that day, my access to the blog at the time the comment was made or other information that isn’t readily apparent.
Very bad news, but glad you brought it to our attention. Kevin Duffey freeelances for MC and does a lot of zoning and land use articles, but he only does a portion of the Lehigh Valley and there needs to be more covered than those subjects. One of the problems with MCall is they want everything they publish to be down the centerline, so it won't overly offend people on either side. And if it can be seen as anti-business, they very well may not publish it.
ReplyDeleteThe MC is pathetic.
ReplyDeleteIt may be sad, but newspapers have been relegated to the past. They may leave a void temporarily, but as always been the case, something will replace them. Most people watch the evening news or look at news sites online. Most of the online content is originated in newspapers or TV. As the newspapers disappear it is likely it will go online, could actually cut the costs of distributing, and also cut the cost of viewership, there will be people who will figure out a low cost, high quality publication. We are in a transition period, but in 10 years it is unlikely there will be any newspapers as we know them. Ask any person under 40 when they read a newspaper and you will understand the reality. It is primarily senior citizens who are clipping coupons and are not computer literate. The internet has created opportunity and also is also changing how people shop, next shoe to drop will be the malls.
ReplyDeleteGood news for people like McClure and company.
ReplyDeleteI am able to find MAYBE, 2 articles a day to read, after scrolling through all the articles that were published days and even months ago, still lingering on the site. Mcall is left leaning. How many articles have you read in the past week that show Trump in a positive light? I'll wait. Manny Gamiz is a great reporter. Pam was good also. Worked with both while i was in a PD. And Nick F. from the Express. But the Call no longer is relevant to me. Oh. Paul Carpenter. Liked a lot of his stories.
ReplyDeleteEven with reporters, they looked right past the Allentown scandal and played cheerleader until they were finally embarrassed by two bottom feeding bloggers. Yes, we'd get some local stories from Pam and Emily (just left for Baltimore) and Manny. But after Allentown, I never trusted their reporters to be telling the whole story for their corporate masters. Losing credibility isn't a half-pregnant proposition. When it's gone a little - it's gone. Today we mourn a death that occurred some time ago, actually.
ReplyDeleteIt’s more than obvious the Morning Call became untrustworthy in recent years. Those who live here realized what they experience daily with their own eyes and ears didn’t match what was being reported. Besides, they reduced themselves to merely reprinting things from bigger, out-of-town media. The content offered was of little use here in the Lehigh Valley.
ReplyDeleteWhen that day finally arrives, I expect to read, the newspaper took it’s own life, unable to cope with truth.
We already have out of control and out of sight local governing and the public could care less. A handful of people go to their meetings as it is and the rest are too busy trying to live their lives and make ends meet. Reporters were one of the few safe guards we had to reign in over zealous local leaders. With no sunshine..things gonna get ever more corrupt. Our right to know sold off to corporate greed and profit.
ReplyDeleteThat should be "couldn't care less."
DeleteHow did that reporter unionization plan work out?
ReplyDeleteWhen all the local newspapers were bought up by national chains, who all seem to have a left leaning bias, the local papers just became the propaganda arm of the bigger fish. The same has happened to the TV networks, as they were gobbled up by the entertainment industry, they became more interested in entertainment and pushing political propaganda. They no longer convey the news but a continuations diet of social engineering disguised as news. They have also lost their credibility, and it is unlikely they will be able to regain it. There is a great opportunity for a news network to report the news, scrap the opinion shows, have more unbiased documentaries covering both sides of the issues and let the citizens decide. C-span has been excellent in remaining relativity unbiased.
ReplyDelete@8:00am The main opinion writer for the Call now, Paul Muschick has a conservative streak. I think that's pretty clear. (I'm a conservative and I enjoy it). I think he's balanced, but he he lands on conservative positions more often than not. "Liberal bias" has become a bit of a catch all. I'm not sure the Morning Call really ever did.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the more I learn about it. The more I hear SWT is without any question the most backwards local government in the Lehigh Valley. Absolutely the Wild West. Completely non-transparent and dysfunctional. The kind of government that thrives with little public oversight and little to no newspaper coverage.
ReplyDeleteThis story has NOTHING to do with whether the newspaper is liberal or conservative. Ot has everything to do with a complete absence of local news.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteStay On topic please. This is not an open mike.
ReplyDeleteClose the door it's useless
ReplyDeleteDear Mr. Nemeth,
ReplyDeleteNewspapers are vital to a democratic government and without them, one of the foremost checks and balances is gone. Do you really think that television news reporters are going to stay on stories and keep elected (and non-elected, for that matter) officials honest? We have already seen how the lack of reporting in different municipalities and school boards allows some to run amok. Some local group needs to join forces and finances and buy the MC so that it may return to its days of thorough news reporting. Once the polls of "what should we cover next" began, the writing was on the wall that its best days had passed.
The Lehigh Valley is too large an area not to have a newspaper that employs seasoned reporters who aren't afraid to ask the questions that make many uncomfortable. Thank goodness we have Bernie and I will NEVER understand why his Courtroom 1 story in August/September was ignored by the media.
As I have already said, the topic here is the death of local journalism. I am uninterested in whether coverage is biased one way or the other. The topic is the huge void of coverage and what it means in a democratic form of government. I have deleted several comments that have strayed and will continue to do so.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThe complete loss of local coverage is frustrating and sad. Even while the Express-Times had local reporters a few years back, they were ignoring county government news, while coordinating hot dog and steak sandwich contests. There's lots of blame to go around and the decline has been steady for many years. As sad as this is, even sadder is that people have learned to live without local coverage and have little idea what's going on in their backyards.
ReplyDeleteThe MCALL is a Pawlowski crime outfit coconspirator.
ReplyDelete"Veteran" is the kind way of saying old? Thanks, Bernie.
ReplyDeleteThe problem here is all newspapers are based on an outdated business model. TMC could public two halves. 5 pages catering to liberals. 5 with conservative writers and it still have a problem sustaining itself.
ReplyDeleteFour reasons...
(1) The Tribune company was bought by a group of investors known to bleed off the assets of other companies they've previously bought. In other words could care if it were a newspaper or widget manufacturer.
(2) In the past if you were a local business TMC was the go-to place to advertise. Now with cable advertising, TV/radio and having to pay for support of their own online website there's simply not enough money left to go around.
(3) With Facebook and other social media where hoards of people can post it's simply impossible to keep up with the vast amount of information everyone's getting for "free".
(4) Extensive investigating reporting is extremely time consuming and expensive.
The internet spelled doom for newspapers. On the other hand the internet gives whistle blowers the opportunity to speak beyond what editors and TV/Radio producers once controlled what was seen and heard. Giant wealthy social media companies have replaced the once prosperous newspaper empires. So as one industry dies another emerges. Much like auto manufacturers put carriage makers out of business.
Let’s put it this way. Many no longer believe the Morning Call is acting as a trustworthy service for ‘Checks and Balance’ upon government and corporate operatives. Particularly, those entities in control of their tax dollars.
ReplyDeleteFor years, the Morning Call has hidden, skewed, even twisted factual information. The Morning Call is no longer TRUSTED! So, why pay to continue receiving something of too little value? Even worse, service of LOCAL knowledge of particular relevance HERE has been continuously reduced !
Just as the American system of government is the worst in the world --- except for all of the others, the only thing worse for a democracy than having news sources with left and right biases is having no news sources at all.
ReplyDeleteLast year Whitehall school taxes rose at the highest percentage of any school in the state.The people were not really informed the board kept it under cover for a long time --the morning call did not cover it. We are in trouble because most politicians do not care about spending other peoples money--we know what politicians are all about in this country. Whitehall people should look out this year because taxes are going big time again in Whitehall--they are putting up a new football stadium.
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect, I would not expect a local newspaper to supply me with all the information I need from a local school board meeting. Many important school district decisions, especially big dollar items, are made in executive sessions. It is incumbent on the citizens of that school community to go to board meetings and ask the important questions.
DeleteRecently the Morning Call ran an article about a legal issue I am involved with. The article was not only incorrect but they also said they reached out for comment when they did not. I have always been skeptical of the stories the Morning Call reports with its local reporters ever since they ran a fake scare story about a group called "229" back in 2008-ish. Glad to see the paper will go to better use than printing half-truths and flat-out lies. Glad to also see the Fourth Estate is slowly losing their power.
ReplyDeleteI still use the Morning Call but follow it mainly on my computer. The only reason we still get home delivery is that my wife enjoys reading it in hard copy as she has her breakfast and morning coffee. I find the complaints here about Morning Call bias both amusing and bothersome. Bias is nothing new in local newspapers and in fact was something that in former times often was expected by readers just as it is often expected today in cable TV national news. While some people may see the Morning Call as being biased, the bias is more covert than overt because the Morning Call rarely publishes editorials reflecting an official point of view of the newspaper or its key staff. Those who have expressed that the real problem with the current Morning Call is lack of reporters covering local news in detail have it right. Unless one has seen it first hand in the past, most people have no idea how much time and effort good local reporting takes. It was once a matter of spending several hours a day in government buildings networking and observing before writing original copy. A single local reporter today in Allentown or Bethlehem may have to cover what was done by three or four reporters only a few decodes ago as well as cover night meetings that last for hours. It is no wonder that some reporters take advantage of prepared releases made available to them prior to staged press events and also often accept purposely leaked information by both elected and appointed officials eager to have their own opinions prevail and make themselves look good. The age of news printed on paper may be over, but the need for a new business model that puts observer/reporters on the ground in locations where local public policy is made and administered has never been greater.
ReplyDeleteThere really WAS a time when neighborhood conversations included “It has to be true, I read it in the Morning Call ! ‘
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect not all citizens can attend school board meeting for various reasons--it should be the duty of the elected school board people to get the information out to the taxpayers. A good number of the politicians like to do things behind your backs and that a fact.The political class in this country from local to federal are not the most honest people and that is also a true fact.
ReplyDelete3:57 is incorrect. Any official action must take place during the open meeting
ReplyDelete4:23 so true without a good press politicians will become more corrupt than they are now.The politicians like 3:57 says make many big time decisions behind close doors like they do in Whitehall.Our political systems breeds these type of people.
ReplyDeleteIs the Morning Call any more biased than Fox News? The same Fox news that is loved by far-right groups such as the LV Tea Party and the local Chamber Of Commerce.
ReplyDeleteIt's very damaging for democratic governance to lose professional journalism. Without an effective press, with the staff to did into events, where will the citizen-public get information about the host of government (& private-sector) developments they need to know about to BE real citizens? It's discouraging to see most of the comments here are from right-wing agitators who don't seem to care about losing access to information; they instead are just complaining that the M Call isn't a local version of Fox News.
ReplyDeleteLet the dying tend to the dead!
ReplyDeletePam, I get older, you get better, lol. Congrats on your new gig. It is well deserved. I hope your colleagues all land on their feet.
ReplyDeleteYou think Channel 69 provides good coverage? Really?
ReplyDeleteI have found them to be the most amateurish station with clueless ‘reporters’
Just the other night there was a story written by Manny Gamiz. It was only about three or four short paragraphs long and I emailed him with four different typos and grammar mistakes.FOUR! It is not only him but I am convinced that they do not proofread nor use spellcheck. I used to work there back in the day and it’s a shame what has happened.
ReplyDelete10:13, You may be correct, but newspapers are going to go the way of horse and buggies whether we like it or not. What exactly will replace them is not yet clear. I did not advocate one way or the other, just stating what is obvious. Some believe they need to be preserved even if subsidized by the taxpayers, I think that would be unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteThe third largest city in the state and it won't have a daily.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bernie. I really hope the same for my colleagues.
ReplyDelete"WFMZ-TV69 now provides better local news and sports coverage than either of the dailies, and is free."
ReplyDeleteLOL - WFMZ's coverage is laughable. Where do you think most of the stuff they report on comes from? One of the dailies, just days later. It's been like that for years, which is why I've stopped watching TV news. The little they do report on will really drop off if something happened to the dailies.
And it's not free, you're paying for cable. I've cut the cord.
Also, from what I understand, MCall isn't losing most of its reporters.
Deleted an OT comment. All you had to do was scroll one post down
ReplyDeleteCABLE IS FAR FROM FREE ! LOL
ReplyDeleteWFMZ = THE READING NEWS !
ReplyDeleteThanx Bern your Weekend Wallop and the comments really hit the spot!
ReplyDeleteNow we must stop Putin from filling them machines with those suck with the coronavirus and Hillary would be the potus.
I quit buying the local newspapers years ago. Occasionally - very occasionally - I visit the mcall website for a specific story. I only watch WFMZ-69 for the weather. Their political "reporting" is little more than right-wing cheer leading for the Trumpkin nuts. That station manager(?) who gives editorials at the end of some broadcasts needs his head examined and should offer some equal time to an opposing view who isn't a bigot.
ReplyDeleteI'll stick with local blogs. Most have the best news, even if it is openly opinionated.
The world needs people who can code, and is willing to pay well for them.
ReplyDeleteRE” MCall.
ReplyDeleteWhat ever became of weatherman Hanna ?
Sorry, I meant Channel 69
ReplyDeleteToday’s Morning Call features a front page article about the new Election Law changes. The Philadelphia Inquirer provided the article but credit at the bottom also goes to Ford Turner, a Morning Call Reporter.
ReplyDeleteThe entire thing reeks of statewide confusion over these changes. It also seems to hint there are no hard deadlines to introduce some of the changes, and expanded mail-in voting is very uncertain as to process.
WHY would any County want to rush into some of this with the next Election Day being held this April? From the sound of the things, Pennsylvania’s next election could be a mashup of questionable results. That wouldn’t be good.
You seem to think the counties can ignore these changes or arbitrarily decide when to follow. They can't.
ReplyDeleteYes, there are new Election Laws, and those should be followed. However, the matter of using epollbooks seems not to be a requirement. At least not yet. The present controversy is over using epollbooks. One side claims we’re not ready to choose. The other side says we MUST switch to these now. I don’t see a statutory requirement.
ReplyDeleteI actually LIKE the idea of epollbooks, but using them appears to be much more expensive. Other reporting indicates less than 10 Pennsylvania counties use these epollbooks, so plenty needs to happen for full compliance across this state.
7:47 am
ReplyDeleteWith the dummocrates large and in charge in PA this is there design to get all the dead voters to count. Very simple of these simpletons to follow the circus clown show of national impechment of America's POTUS!
Speaking of dummies, Democrats are not large and in charge in Pa. The changes to the Election Code, which are long overdue, are the product of the GOP state legislature. Wolf actually (and incorrectly) vetoed the first iteration of these changes. So if there is a circus clown show, as you say, look to your own party.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeletethe best local news
https://www.wfmz.com/news/wfmz-locates-missing-piece-of-equipment/article_2aa36e14-46c3-11ea-9226-47d52ee0a1c3.html