Lurching From Mindless Fluffery to Near Excellence

Bits and pieces from the Sunday Standard-Examiner

By Curmudgeon

The morning's Standard-Examiner provides a fine example of the paper's exasperating inconsistency, its wild swings between competence and mind-numbing fluffery within the pages of the same issue.

Let's start with the good: There is a very interesting story by Joe Frazier headlined "Streetcars helping revive downtowns". Of course, it's a wire service story, not one by Std-Ex staff, but still, the editors get some chops for running it. Here are a few excerpts:

But they are making a comeback in several American cities, and more have plans in the wings, projects largely development-driven to revitalize sagging urban areas, and to serve a population segment, often baby boomers, choosing to move back to the cities and to simplify their lives when they do....
Most newer lines are less than five miles long, but transit officials in cities such as Portland, Little Rock, Tampa, Kenosha, Wis., Tacoma, Wash., and elsewhere, said they are making a difference in rejuvenating sagging urban areas. Charles Hales, senior vice president of the engineering firm HDR, which works on many streetcar projects, says as many as 60 American cities are in some stage of streetcar planning or development, “depending on how you count it....”
The new lines no longer are the commuter systems they once were. They are designed to lure people back into cities, keep them there, and perk up decaying, underused, and undertaxed, former industrial sites and similar areas. And it seems to be working.
Portland has seen about $2.5 billion in new construction, including 7,248 new housing units within three blocks of the line since the plan was announced in 1997.
In Little Rock, Ark., the figure is between $300 million and $400 million. “It is not the only reason (for the construction) but most developers admit the streetcar is one of the reasons,” said Keith Jones, who helped design the system there. “The line defines areas where things in the city are happening....”
Sixty cities, depending, on track [yes, pun intended] to revive downtowns via street car transit. But not Ogden, of course, because out Mayor, still in the grip of his weird flatland gondola delusion has prevented and is continuing to block the steps needed to start Ogden on the same path. Frazier's story is well worth the time.

Now for the not so good. The lead story in the Std-Ex this morning, by Mr. Schwebke, top of the front page, big headline, is this: "Ogden Hopefuls Confident." Here's the story's lead paragraph:

OGDEN — With just a couple of campaign days left, five mayoral candidates are confident they will cruise to victory in Tuesday’s primary election.

Then it goes on to quote each and every one of the five about how the voters are for them and they are confident of going through to victory in primary. [Well, four of the five anyway. I'm not quite sure what candidate Thompson told Mr. Schwebke: Thompson... is taking a decidedly low-key approach to the primary. He hasn’t actively campaigned. “I don’t go door-to-door,” he said. “I don’t introduce myself as running for mayor. People in my neighborhood wish me well, ask for a (campaign) sign, and might say they are voting for me. Not once, either knowing me or out of the blue, has anyone ever brought up issues or problems either for me or in regard to the city.”

Ah... ok. I guess. [English translations of what Mr. Thompson said would be gratefully received.]

The whole story is boilerplate pablum fluffery as far as election coverage goes. All the candidates are confident of victory two days from the vote. No! Stop the presses! Alert the media! Ranks right up there with "College of Cardinals Choose Catholic As Next Pope" or "Sun To Rise In East, Scientists Say!" Candidates confident of victory is the lead story in the paper, and the lead political story, two days before an election? Unbelievable.

Mr. Schwebke, by the way, has a much better article, also on the front page, headlined "Huntsville Tax Revolt Over Property Assessments".

Then, back to the good again, there's an interesting and thoughtful editorial headlined "The Fears of Poverty" on the editorial page.

It's the inconsistency of the Std-Ex that drives a newspaper junkie like me to distraction, the seemingly random lurches from the mindless fluffery of Candidates Confident of Victory to the substantive good work of Tax Revolt in Eden to, occasionally, excellence. No one can do excellent work every time all the time. But certainly Std-Ex readers can reasonably expect competent substantive work consistently, and not be subjected to the embarrassment of their home town daily making the lead story on a Sunday morning of election week "Candidates Confident of Victory."

Sigh....

Update 9/9/07 3:44 p.m. MT: We have an interesting discussion brewing in the lower comments section regarding this morning's Charlie Trentleman article, which bears signs of having been hacked to pieces, prior to this morning's publication. Have a look at it yourselves, gentle readers, and feel free to comment on whether this airy piece seems congruent with Mr. Trentelman's normally logical, internally consistent and polished work product. Frankly, we have our doubts. It appears to be a re-write to us.