is it just me...

[Goobersmooch]

Or is the Hattiesburg American doing an absolute Shite job of keeping local news in the paper.

It's all national, state and AP news both in the paper and online here lately.:cry:

Do we need to go out and MAKE some news?:banghead:

[SoMissTV]

You gotta have reporters in order to write news. Hopefully, they'll hire some one day.

[countrygirl]

I've read local news in the Clarion Ledger BEFORE it hits the HA

[TheCapitalist]

Yea. been that way. WDAM is the same. Watch the same news three times. Little local news. If you miss it, you have at least 2 more shots at it.

[Augustus MCcrae]

Or is the Hattiesburg American doing an absolute Shite job of keeping local news in the paper.

It's all national, state and AP news both in the paper and online here lately.:cry:

Do we need to go out and MAKE some news?:banghead:

Smooch, I've been in and out of Hburg for long stretches for the past 55 years. I was here when WDAM arrived and through local, then corporate ownership of the Hburg American and the ongoing revolving cycle of missionary editors for that newspaper. I think the current state of news offerings in Hattiesburg is at an all time low. When I get home in the afternoon, I turn on one of the national news networks and just leave it there...don't bother any more to watch the 5 or 6 local WDAM news. Sometimes I'm particularly interested in a Mississippi sports story, and I watch WLOX on the Coast at 10 - they do a MUCH better job.

I like Randy Swan. Grew up with him. He's a decent guy...he used to seem to have a zeal and hunger for providing news. I can only assume that it's a low budget operation designed for profit. The Hattiesburg American is, at best, the City of Hattiesburg and USM's press organ....serves no other purpose that I can tell.

Queen knows how very difficult it is to build a media outlet in a town this size and compete economically. But if any area ever needed it, it is Hattiesburg!

[Queen Mother]

You're exactly right Gus. Everybody acknowledges the need; everybody wants it; and everybody begs you to do it - but when it comes down to local businesses supporting it, this is a very apathetic town. There's so much competition out there in a town the size of Hattiesburg - every media group, school & church organization, civic group, sports booster clubs, etc. are competing for a slice of the pie.

You're right, though - Hattiesburg needs alternative media sources - they just want it free!

[Hawkeye]

Boy, do I agree. Bob Pittman's "Independent" was the closest thing to a real news community newspaper that's been around these parts for a long time. It had a pulse. I looked forward to each issue and miss it, dearly.

[Guru]

I call this the "everydayism" of what news has become. They just google some crap from somewhere, stick it in a spot for a minute and then jump to something else that is just the same.
Just a vehicle for providing advertising space.

[Goobersmooch]

well its got more to do with the 24 hour news cycle instead of the morning 5 and 10 o clock news cycle

so now theyre having to fill the publics insatiable appetite for news with utter crap

[TheCapitalist]

The HA shows it's liberal bias often. Posting the rantings of a few people over and over in the opinion section. It gets old. Bush bashing served daily. Antiwar propaganda. Same few people. They should make it official and give them their own columns.

[Goobersmooch]

to be fair

those same few people being posted in the letters to the editor the opinion section are pretty much the only ones that write in

at least that was the case nearly 2 years ago...i cant imagine that it would have changed by now

[BassCatter]

I wrote a letter to the editor. Questioning the incorporation of Oak Grove. They wouldn't publish it.....Lamar times did, but it went unanswered for nearly a year.

[Guru]

I get more real news from The Laurel Leader Call.

[Hawkeye]

I get more real news from The Laurel Leader Call.

That's because one of our esteemed members is the News Editor @ LLC

[Goobersmooch]

I wrote a letter to the editor. Questioning the incorporation of Oak Grove. They wouldn't publish it.....Lamar times did, but it went unanswered for nearly a year.

i got nothing to explain that... its been 2 years so my experience is becoming less relevent

[MSQueen]

Maybe, like in times past, we can help provide the HA and WDAM with news ideas that we would like to see covered. It shouldn't take long, as YH continues to build its membership base, before I believe they will start to take notice of what our members post here.

(That's kinda sad though, in one way, that they have to look to others to give them a push to determine what avenues to pursue in their reporting endeavors.) :shrug:

[jaxstar]

Hah... I think I have too much to say on this topic. The Burger never was able to cover much late-breaking local news. We didn't come out frequently enough and we didn't have anyone on our staff other than me interested in writing about it, but it was something we always wanted to do. Now that we're going to be exclusively online, we will try to cover those stories. Please let me know what types of local articles you'd like to see. And we never back down from a letter to the editor.