Dear Somerville Journal

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

Before posting a story giving credit where none is due, please check your sources.

While we appreciate the coverage and the sentiment behind your article on Veteran's Day,

The City Did Not Hold This Event. The Post itself did and paid for everything out of its own pocket.

I know that the commander of The Post made attempts to contact your offices yesterday to clear this up, but I also wanted to set the record straight.

Thank you very much.

::EDIT:: For those pointing out the quality of the article in question, my S/O just noted that..."A severely ADHD rabbit could have written it better"

IAWTS 100%.

Comments

Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[jspazzer.livejournal.com]

And they must really hate this Kantrell Robinson. They list his deployment to Iraq under "Celebrations".


http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/news/lifestyle/celebrations/x1908582631
Somerville Journal Celebrations RSS

Kantrell deployed to Iraq
Mon Dec 03, 2007, 10:20 AM EST
Somerville -

Somerville - Army Pfc. Kantrell L. Robinson has deployed to Iraq to support the mission of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[ron_newman]

Yeah, I'd think that his safe return to the US will be a much more appopriate thing to celebrate.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

IAWTC

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

I noticed the article earlier but didn't notice the section it was filed under.

Great googly moogly.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[somjournal.livejournal.com]

Friends -- thank you for the constructive criticism.

And I also appreciate you pointing out that the "Celebrations" tab we have is just stupid. Someone elsewhere made the decision that "Milestones" and "People" wasn't easy to understand, so when a soldier gets shipped off, I put it under "homepage" "news" and the poorly-named "celebrations."

I also have to say that I need you to give a shout at somerville@cnc.com if you want one of us to correct a poorly-worded story or something that is inaccurate. There are very few of us trying to cover your city, and in the middle of all of it, we're not going to know you're having a problem if you're only talking about it over here amongst yourselves.

Long-story short: We're imperfect, and we can get better with your help.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[ron_newman]

Thanks for coming here. Could you please do a follow-up story on the Winter Hill Star Market, telling us why it is closing? Lost its lease? Not enough customers? Can't compete with Super Stop & Shop? We want to know.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[somjournal.livejournal.com]

My best recollection is our repeated calls to headquarters have gone unanswered on that subject. We can get the local store owners to tell us they're closing, but as far as "why," no one has yet to respond.

I can tell you that folks in the community have speculated that the combination of poor food quality -- most mention spores on bread -- combined with the Stop & Shop down the hill must be the reason for the drop off in customers, but the store owners will not confirm that.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

I echo ron's sentiments and thank you as well. As the OP on this issue, I can tell yout that I know on Saturday morning, the Dilboy Post Commander attempted to contact the Somerville Journal offices to set the record straight.

I told him that morning I would post to a local community to do the same.

With regards to the story on Star Market - wouldn't it have been in proper form to state that store owners will not give a reason or confirm speculation by customers as to the reason they're leaving? At least then, readers would know and understand that the questions were asked but they were not actually answered, so the story is, in fact, complete.

I tried to find this sort of e-mail to respond to on Wicked Local, but that site isn't really great.

Finally, I'd be happy to offer inexpensive freelance services to help cover Somerville. A newspaper is only as good as its reporting and I would hate to see The Journal go the way of so many other local papers around the country sinply because they sacrificed quality for cost.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[ron_newman]

Also, if I couldn't get anyone to comment by calling as a reporter, I'd get someone else to call with the same questions, but identifying him/herself as a satisfied Star Market customer. The corporate folks might informally reply with some useful information that they wouldn't give to a reporter.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

Mm. Old time, underhanded tactics. You really are just a little bit evil, aren't you?

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[ron_newman]

This is my favorite movie ever.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[jspazzer.livejournal.com]

Another thing that is just stupid: you should fix the "Somerville Journal staff blog" link (the one in the big font) to actually go to the blog:
http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/blogs

What is the point of having the large fonted link go to a dead-end page saying "We told you not to hit that link".

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

I'm sending a consolidated message to the e-mail address provided today with the comments here. It will address quality (both grammar and content), the Celebrations Tab, the fact checking issue and...well...this. That is silly.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[jspazzer.livejournal.com]

And when you done with that, you can start work on fixing the Somerville News.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

LOL! Maybe I will. Wanna back me with some capital?

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[jspazzer.livejournal.com]

And throw good money after bad? I will pay you a dollar for each intelligent comment you find on their site that is not from Ron.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[ron_newman]

'Tricky' also has many intelligent things to say there, and there are a small number of others, but yeah.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

I'll post the e-mail tonight when I get home.

[ron_newman]

Please do -- but as a separate new post. Probably not a lot of people are still tracking this one.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

That was my plan. : ) A follow up, if you will.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

There are very few of us trying to cover your city,

I would say the biggest issue is written right there. Shouldn't it be "our" city?

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

Absolutely!

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I think this reflects the consolidation crunch: the Somerville Journal and Cambridge Chronicle work out of the same office, and I don't think most of the reporters live in either city (and on the salaries they get, I don't see how they could!)

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

Nevertheless, wouldn't you have a vested interest in the city you're assigned to report on? I don't live in Somerville either, but I have strong ties there and more of an interest and bond with the city than the one I reside in!

Really...if it pays your salary, no matter how small, you should have some sort of attachment to doing the best that you can do - and always strive to improve.

Re: Celebrating an Iraq deployment?

[ron_newman]

Those two papers have long worked out of the same office, which has moved around the square a few times in the past two decades. But once upon a time, the company that published them was local, and published nothing else besides those two weeklies and another in Watertown.