Our local paper is asking for readers’ memories of Sept 11 for stories to be printed in the paper or posted on line. Personally, I can’t think of too many things that would be less newsworthy. Sure, it makes for interesting small talk to discuss “Where I was when Kennedy was shot/Challenger blew up/the Berlin Wall came down” or whatever else. But is the newspaper so desperate for copy that they’d dedicate resources to gathering such as this? I place this on the par with reporters asking someone “How are you feeling?” as if that would reveal a startling insight to an event.
I don’t take the paper and I don’t intend to read this stuff if they put it online. What about you? Is there any news story that is bettered by asking random folks where they were when they heard about it? Am I getting my panties in a wad over nothing of import? [sub]yeah, I know…[/sub]
I probably wouldn’t read such a story, either, but since it’s a local paper, I think that sort of “feature story” thing is fair game. Not all local papers are the same, of course, but my experience with small town local papers has been that with the shortage and unpredictability of hard news, this sort of story is right up their alley, especially if it’s not a daily.
Jacksonville is a pretty big city and the Times-Union is a fairly well-known daily paper. I guess I should have made that clearer at the start.
If someone had been involved in rescues and such in the beginning, as in the thread Cartooniverse did back then, I might be interested in the stories. But knowing that Mary Smith was at her desk at work and when she heard the news on her radio, she cried… well, it ain’t news. The fact that I work on base and we were sent home for a couple of days isn’t news.
OK, so I’m a grouch.