What's My Beef!

I went on and on, asking him where in the paper can I find useful information such as radio stories seen in other newspapers (linked from radiodailynews.com), a weekly playlist from the Dr. Demento Show, a radio happenings feature I call "Random Access Radio", what's happening on Internet radio stations such as my own dfsxradio.com, and a daily radio program guide telling me what shows are on what stations and when. The stupid salesman said that the readers weren't interested in this stuff. I told him that I wasn't interested in paying for what I call expensive daily bird cage lining and I left.

The San Diego Union Buffoon has lost six percent of its readers from the year before (2004 vs. 2003) according to Roger Hedgecock on his radio show. What I and Roger do independently of each other is what brings in the eyes and the ears, that is, we talk about what the people in San Diego are interested in knowing more about, as opposed to the same old police and courtroom blotter that the paper likes to talk about. The paper's publisher says that they're in it just to change the public's opinion, hey, remember their old slogan from four years ago "How will you be changed?" Here's the truth. The Union Buffoon newspaper misunderstands the collective intelligence of the college-level reader, and instead, gives us a steady diet of stories perfectly suitable for readers with no higher than an eighth-grade level.

So why are the listeners of Roger's and some other talk shows going up while the readers of their local newspapers are going down? Simple. The paper is not reporting on the stories in a fair and unbiased manner, and leaving out some of the facts that Roger and other talk shows can fill us up in on their radio shows. That's why the local paper has lost six percent of its readers while ratings for the local talk shows are up. That's why readers at my site and other radio news sites are up while people interested in radio are dropping their subscriptions of the Buffoon in droves.

Another note about the local paper: why is it that during election years, the papers never report on candidates aside of the Republican and Democratic parties as much as they do with the candidates of the top two? What's with all of the fluff pieces on Bush's and Kerry's candidates and no fluff from the candidates from the other parties? This is why the local newspaper is biased because they won't bother to balance their coverage with stories on other political parties on a regular basis last year. The paper is influencing people to not vote for any of the other politicial parties and is sticking to reporting on just the two parties and that isn't fair to the reader trying to make a decision on who to vote for, instead, the paper influences them to choose only from the Demo-Republi-crat candidates.

To conclude, readers want the full story without leaving out some important facts that they will eventually find out from another source. The readers want to read the happenings about local and Internet radio and what's happening with what they're doing. Until the local newspaper learns to give the readers what they want, they will continue to lose subscribers to alternate sources year to year, while local radio talk hosts will reap the rewards of working to get the full story about the local happenings that the paper never bothers to deal with.

Some Tips For Building a Better Daily Newspaper (or radio news website) (April 12, 2005)

People want to know what's going on at the local radio stations and notable out of market stations they listen to on the Internet as well as what kinds of stories from the wires they would like to read. Radiodailynews.com is an excellent source for the radio wire finds.

Since the paper stopped doing radio coverage, the news paper could start on its way to building a better paper by paying an independent freelance radio writer for the radio stories and thoughts that they can publish on their papers. I could freelance for the U-T to help out just for starters.

Also, the Sunday papers! What's with the price tag? I'm paying two bucks for more than half of the stuff I never read! Reduce the size and drop the price back to 50 cents. Also, expand the Sunday comics to sixteen pages instead of a measly six, publish a TV Week that's as big as the old weekly TV week that was half the size of the newspaper page back in the 60s and expand the local channel listing coverage to include all of the stations broadcast in the area. In addition, drop the bulky sections that often go into the dump such as the real estate and classifieds and sell them separately for those who want to pay for them.

Bob Laurence mulls over Buffy the Vampire slayer too much. Maybe he's infatuated with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Aside of that, the TV reviews are helpful in letting me know what sitcoms and other shows are a waste of time, in my view, almost all of them are if it doesn't have a intelligent and sexy lady in the show.

What's with the U-T not covering stories that matter? They never reported a followup on the story where some unknown company I never heard of sued Britney Spears (and lost) for infringing on its "In The Zone" trademark, which I, like Britney, never was aware of. The loser company should be thanking Britney for publicizing their bitter company that I wish to not give publicity to. (update, as of April 11, they never published an obituary for actress Debralee Scott, a personality that logged in a few reader comments!)

Go after the kids with a daily four to eight page news section geared to the younger readers. Forget about old fogies doing negative reviews on stuff they don't understand, which is why they can't relate to the subject in the first place. Let the kids review the movies, concerts, albums, TV shows, comic books, video games, and anything else aimed at them and let them give their own critiques about the subjects. And for good measure, a diet of puzzles and games for the parents to play with their kids.

The San Diego U-T needs to get with the times and get some changes in order. How will the U-T be changed?

sincerely

David Tanny

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