Comments for Chain Reaction at http://www.theind.com , comment 1 to 7 out of 7 comments http://www.theind.com Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:14:12 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.theind.com/cover-story/3742#comment-620 Aside from Claire Taylor at TDA, all of the best TDA reporters have left to work for The Advocate's Acadiana bureau in Lafayette. As a former TDA reporter, I strongly encourage Lafayette readers to end their Advertiser subscription, and sign up with The Advocate. You will get better reporting, and make your statement as clear as possible to Gannett -- with your $. - Former TDA reporter Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:10:32 +0100 http://www.theind.com/cover-story/3742#comment-279 The Independent is consistent with three hates: The Daily Advertiser, Religion, and Republicans. As to the Advertiser, yes it stinks, nonetheless, ââ?¬Å?paperââ?¬Â newspapers may not survive including the Independent. Forces of change are at work and the power of print is fading, it may not totally go away, but time will tell. - Frost Bite Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:29:25 +0100 http://www.theind.com/cover-story/3742#comment-248 First off, there would still be a daily newspaper if Gannett had not stepped in. There were more offers on the table than the one from Gannett when The Advertiser went on the block. And there will be buyers waiting in the wings if Gannett ever chooses to sell - at today's price, of course. The real sin would be for Gannett to just shut down operations without giving anyone else the chance to buy at the going rate. I'm very interested in the editorial comments about other newspapers not directly involved in the newspaper. I actually read a couple of those Moody papers on a regular basis, and there's more local news in there than in the Advertiser and The Independent combined. Bias? Yeah, toward local coverage. Pulitzer material? Not so much. As for full disclosure, you make me laugh. It's disclosure but hardly full. There's only one number listed: one. No P&L sheet? Maybe that's just for the corporate boys. Reporting is a difficult thing to do. Reporting on one's industry must be even more so because it's hard to keep your heart out of it. I thought the cover art was very appropriate except it lacked Ms. Turk's finger helping to push that domino. - Swamp Rat Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:17:29 +0100 http://www.theind.com/cover-story/3742#comment-243 First, Pat Briney's justifiable comments aside, the Advertiser today is a shadow of what it had been at the start of this century. That being said, Ms. Turk's editorial comments about the bad effects of a local paper being owned and operated by a national media corporation are just nonsense, and it is tedious to have to put up with her insertion of a doctrinaire editorial, presented to us on the presumption of her subjective views being like proven scientific facts- it tedious to have to read in what should be a work of reporting. The reporter needs to keep herself out of it! That is good journalism! She wants to editorialize- she can give the Ind. another piece presenting her views on the matter. Her assertion, in a condescending proclamaition, the the Advertiser's problems are ". . . one of the best examples in the country of the dangers of a corporate owned, publicly traded daily paper in any community. ." is just silliness. Privately owned papers do the same things all the time; I know, I used to work for one! Corporate owned papers are often excellent, I used to work for one of those as well! If Ms. Turk's thesis were correct, then Gannett, which has been in business for decades, would have destroyed itself years ago. Also Hearst, Times-Mirror, the Tribune Co., the NY Times Company. Her silly views, couched in apparent terms of all big corporations being bad things, is oblivious to what is happending now in media: that print organizations are in the uncomfortable position of being like dinosaurs on the eve of an ice age. It is time for them to adapt, perhaps even undergo metamorphosis, or die. By the way, if it was'nt for Gannett taking over the Advert at some time in the past, we probably would not even have a daily paper of our own today; no doubt the local owners who sold it for the first time to a national media concern could not maintain it any longer. - Glen Sullivan Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:47:08 +0100 http://www.theind.com/cover-story/3742#comment-239 The Advertiser was an awful paper long before Gannett bought it. Its shameless biases, incompetent reporting, indifference to local events, and laughable spelling habits existed long before Gannett took over. To be sure Gannett has taken the paper to new lows in these and other respects, but to suggest the Advertiser ever demonstrated anything like journalistic integrity or competence is at odds with the facts. - Pat Briney Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:43:00 +0100 http://www.theind.com/cover-story/3742#comment-238 "Even if The Advertiserââ?¬â?¢s 2008 profit is half of what it was in 2007, which judging from the strength of our local economy wonââ?¬â?¢t likely be the case, the painful cuts here are still very hard for many newspaper watchers to understand or accept ââ?¬â? especially when theyââ?¬â?¢re not occurring at other papers in the state." The Lake Charles American Press, a "family-owned" paper, just laid off seven employees this month, including its longtime Newspapers In Education liason, and more layoffs are expected. Current staff is scared witless with some already putting feelers out just in case the worst happens. Also, pages have been slashed to the bare minimum. Sundays have gone from close to 72 pages to about 56 pages. Tom Shearman, who apparently doesn't know the first thing about newspapers, is too busy making real estate deals in downtown Lake Charles to care about the ongoing Gannett-ization of his newspaper. - John Smith Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:05:39 +0100 http://www.theind.com/cover-story/3742#comment-236 Excellent article. I suspected such chaos was ongoing at TDA, but no other local media outlet reported it in any detail. We badly need a local buyer for TDA. I still love to open the morning paper, particularly for local news and events. Let's face it, the national and international stuff is all AP articles from yesterday, by the time you read it in the morning. I'd like to see them hire more reporters for local stories, cover and follow them in depth and function more as a watchdog on local government. - richard thornton Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:14:24 +0100