In a world beset with event both catastrophic and tumultuous, momentous and turbulent the less than mundane should be far in the background. So what’s the main story in our local newspaper? This is: Does Obama’s puppy qualify as a rescued dog? Okay, human interest and all the rest. But a thousand words on this grave matter? Anybody who cares whether the pooch is a rescue dog or not needs serious meditation. The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and the AP obviously think this is a serious subject.
Our local paper whose motto is “If it happens in Lubbock it’s news to us” – I’m not making this up – is like so many other papers, about to go under for the big dive. The paper’s editor-in-chief recently explained to a lunch group that the paper was devoting virtually all its coverage to topics that in one way or another had a local connection. This because national and international issues were so well covered on the internet. I’m still trying to get the connection between whether the Obama’s Portuguese Water Dog is a rescue dog or not and the drought on the South Plains. Perhaps it will come to me.
Any newspaper that has “Avalanche” as part of its name in a part of the country so flat that you can see Chicago if you stand on a tuna fish can is apt to be confused. The paper does no investigative reporting because it says it can’t afford to. So it exerts no control over local misbehavior by private or public miscreants. Devoid of purpose like virtually all of its fellows it withers and eventually will blow away.
Woof!
