Why we still need the Herald-Sun

I fear that I pick on the Herald-Sun here perhaps a bit too much, though not less than they deserve. Sometimes, to criticize something is to simply say you love them (or want to) and you hope, you wish, you know they could do better.

And frankly, if you look back in the microfiche to the days when they were under local ownership, there was much more in-depth local reporting -- though it's of course hard to dissociate this from the advertising pressures that all daily newsers are under these days. Most days, the Herald-Sun is so thin from to a lack of local news coverage that you might only be able to wrap a minnow in it.

For its part, the N&O is fortunate to be based in a larger market, which affords the chance to spend more dough on reporters and editors. (All too often, the same names recycle through the by-lines on the H-S these days... sometimes multiple articles in a day, which seems more appropriate for the Caswell County Chronicle or what-have-you than a real city paper. I'm sure it makes it hard for good reporters to cover stories as deeply as they'd like, too.)  And Saturday's Durham News section has really been on point with more features coverage and news analysis, along with some at times very moving writing.

Still, if we ever lost the Herald-Sun, we'd lose not only a local institution, but one which remembers which locality it is speaking to. As good as the N&O can be at times -- and it matches up with the best mid-market papers I've seen anywhere -- it always will be a Wake-centric publication. Case in point, from the N&O's "Taking Stock" blog: some comments to a post by Sue Stock on a new Sheetz gas station going in at RDU:

Comment from: Sue Stock [Member]

04/21/07 at 18:17
Bella,

Sheetz is under construction as you head into the airport. So if you come from I-40, Sheetz will be on your right as you drive onto the airport's property. But it's before you split off to go to the terminals or parking.

Sue

Comment from: JD [Visitor] 04/21/07 at 18:26

That's if you're coming from Raleigh, it's on Aviation Parkway, as you exit I-40 at exit 285. For us Durhamites, who take Airport Blvd (exit 284) to RDU, we'll need to exit off of Airport Blvd to the right to get there. (Sheetz will be on the left.)

No disrespect intended to Stock, who does a pretty decent job of covering local retail happenings from Clayton to Chapel Hill and back, including some news out of the Bull City that the Herald-Sun's "Business Buzz" sometimes misses. It's more endemic than just one reporter; a couple of times over the past months, for instance, at least one City Councilman has rather publicly complained to the N&O's editors, correcting oversights as silly as bylining the CROP Walk, a Durham institution, in Raleigh... or graphics of RTP that somehow seem to show it's all in Wake County.

Together, this all points to a broader challenge: the city the N&O serves is the City of Oaks. Without a local paper of our own, I suspect The Durham News would soldier on as it does.  Weekly, that is, just like the Eastern Wake News and The Cary News and I'm sure, eventually, the Wendell News or Granville Gazette or whatever is planned to come next.

There are certainly real challenges ahead for the Herald-Sun. The Indy's analysis from last year, for instance, seems still all too true a year later. A fair amount of boosterism and community news over the sort of deeper-digging local reporting you saw in the 90s. And more syndicated content than a scratchy, over-the-air UHF station. And a metro desk no bigger than the N&O's -- at least from all outward appearances.

The Herald-Sun and its new ownership was a shotgun marriage -- literally overnight, from the paper's perspective, the Rollins family left and the Rollins family came in. And that means, it's time to say the words that inevitably come into so many marriages after a couple of years:

"I love you, now change." Because we've left Paducah, honey, and we need this marriage to work out. For both of our sakes.

Comments

[Andrew]

I get the weekend edition of the N&O. I would much rather get the Herald, but when I asked if they could match the price they wouldn't come even close. So now I just read the Herald online.

The overt N&O Wake bias is frustrating (that RTP map in Sunday's paper was a particularly egregious boner). I feel vindicated knowing that the Indy's got our backs.

--ASE.

[Dave S.]

OT somewhat...
Speaking of Sheetz, I wish they had one close to Duke. They've got a huge fast/junk food/beverage selection, as I learned from earlier visits to the Mebane location. But one perk that the new Miami/Alexander location has that should excite even those who don't like 2/.99 hot dogs and 2.99 loaded subs and being able to mix Diet Coke with Code Red Mountain Drew is their FREE tire gauge and pressure machine. Even if I've ever found a place that offers free air, I've got to rely on my own questionable instrument and an unfriendly air pump. The Sheetz magic machine reads your tire pressure and then you set it to whatever you want, and it beeps when your desired tire pressure is reached.

[Anonymous]

The Herald could double their local coverage (by local I mean their role as major daily of the western Triangle) by simply giving everyone the news of Orange County and not limiting it's dissemination to just Orange County.