Why's everyone trashing the local rag?
Written: Sep 29 '00
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Pros: Good columnist, helpful daily information - road conditions, etc
Cons: Biased coverage of local events, skimpy daily editions, poor TV listings
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| anecdoter's Full Review: Toledo Blade |
Most likely because it is a biased newspaper that spends more time furthering the agenda of its editor than of actually reporting the news. To make matters worse, it is the only newspaper in Toledo, a medium sized city with a metropolitan population of over 600,000.
Growing up reading the Blade every morning, I must say that I never saw a problem with the paper until I was exposed to other newspapers, such as the New York Times. To be fair it is hard for most newspapers to even come close to touching the Times in terms of content and quality, but the Toledo Blade seemingly does not even try.
The Main section of the paper, which covers international and domestic news, is a scant ten pages on the daily editions, which includes two for opinions and editorials. Most of the stories are the top Associated Press articles for the day and only give a scant, piecemeal view of the world's happenings. Most of the global news stories are ultra-condensed into one paragraph summaries on the second page. More often than not, a lot of front page and main section real estate is wasted new proposals from developers that will "surely revitalize downtown." This is stated so often, it more like a Tabloid's end of the world prediction than anything Toledians take seriously.
The second section is devoted to local news and is now home to the business section. This is where all those developer propositions should go. This section is slightly bigger than the main section and this is where one can find stock listings, the daily log of crimes, births, and deaths, plus the obituaries and a daily map of road construction projects in the area - which is most useful, I must add. The weather forecast is usually the back page of this section.
The third section is the Sports section and the classified section. I hardly look at either, therefore I cannot give an honest opinion of them.
The fourth and final section is the Living section that alternates daily between food, fashion, health and life styles. However, this is smallest section and is carved up by comics, the TV listings (called The Peach section because of the color of the paper), Anne Landers, soap opera summaries, and much more. Some of the health information can be interesting, and the science/technology advisor, Michael Woods, actually knows what he's talking about; which is always a bonus.
There are a couple of columnists in the Blade and one in particular makes for a very good read. She is very insightful and is not afraid to back down from a fight with our tantrum endowed mayor who is always embarrassing the city. Roberta De Boer is a definite must read in the paper.
The Sunday edition of the paper is much better than the daily, and is comparably on par with most Sunday papers in Ohio. It is quite thick, with separate sections for Real Estate, Business, Sports, Arts and Entertainment, Behind the News, a Second News section, and the Main section. While the daily papers are somewhat skimpy, the Sunday paper is worth the $1.50 The Blade is more crippled by its editorial policies than anything else.
The editor of this paper is very hypocritical and very biased. I have written several letters to the editor, that I made sure met all criteria, that were never published because they went against the editor's positive stance on the new downtown stadium. I had to badger the Blade's ombudsman to persuade the paper to give a more balanced outlook on this Stadium. The following is an example of the editor's hypocritical writings: a year or so ago, the editor wrote a brash piece demanding that no new buildings be torn down in the downtown area, now the editor is glorifying the stadium, and quickly dismissing the loss of nearly ten buildings in an area of the city that has been gutted. While people's opinions do change, the editor and the paper have consistently ignored facts that the stadiums benefit will be severely limited. Now this ball is rolling with a another proposal to build a new marina district in an area that simply cannot handle the traffic.
As long as this editor runs the paper, the Blade will only be a laughable joke around town. It is hard to view the paper as being respectable when it only provide biased coverage to local events. Also, the editor can be quite moody and tends to criticize people or institutions that make incremental, but steady improvements to the quality of life in the city. The editor, prefers the bigger is better approach, and unless your project is big enough to warrant a page sized map of the area to be improved, good luck finding favorable coverage.
Being the only local daily paper in Toledo, we are pretty much suck reading it for our local news. However, I recommend picking up a New York times for national and international coverage. When reading the Blade, be sure to try to read through the editor's spin, its the only way you'll get balanced coverage from this paper.
Recommended:
No
Describe the newspaper's political views: It is conservative
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Epinions.com ID:
anecdoter
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Member: Steve
Location: Toledo, OH
Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 3 members
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