No News Isn’t Good News

As a sports fan growing up in the Chicago suburbs, I was accustomed to rolling out of bed and dialing WH 3-3080 to get all the recorded sports scores from the day before. The West Coast games that were designated “late” in the local papers (four of them when I was growing up: the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago American) or games that extended past the newspapers’ deadline (usually after midnight).

Living on the West Coast for the past 40 years that hasn’t been an issue until now. The USA Today’s Register-Guard should be named the Late Register-Guard, and while the disappearance of box scores is an irritant, we’re going way beyond sports in much more substantive matters.

In short, I can’t think of a reason to read this piss-poor excuse for what once was a credible local paper. I could easily drop 250 words listing the many egregious editorial decisions and mind-numbing deadlines this new non-local paper is adhering too.

Instead, I’ll pose this question to fellow readers. Other than the obituaries, why would I subscribe to the RG? Seriously, I can’t think of a reason. Virtually everything they’re printing I can get elsewhere (including full, updated box scores). Eugene Weekly — any chance you can expand to a daily — or twice weekly? There is a huge hole where local journalism used to live in our town. 

AM Traisman

Eugene