We hardly notice the news is gone

Downtown is alive with flowers

I’ve stopped getting the Post-Star, and I miss it, although what I miss is what the paper was, not what it is.

It comes out three days a week now, using large photos with wire stories to fill up space, along with a handful of press releases, cop briefs and high school sports scores. Each edition might have three or four local stories with bylines. Twenty years ago, a single paper had more local news than a week’s worth does now.

I had a less-expensive online subscription until last week, and the last paper I looked at was the Thursday, Sept. 7 edition.

It featured a story on a new state Health Department requirement on reporting PFAs in drinking water that, with an extra large photo, took up most of the front page.

The story was reported by Hayleigh Colombo, a member of the Lee Enterprises Public Service Journalism Team, who works out of Columbus, Ohio. 

Lee, the corporate owner of the Post-Star, is using four-person regional teams to produce investigative stories that can run in multiple papers. This follows consolidation of the paper’s layout and design to a regional design center in the Midwest, outsourcing of its printing and layoffs over the past 15 years of most of its news-gathering staff.

Last year, when the public service journalism teams were announced, the other three reporters for this region were from Richmond, Virginia; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and Catawba County, North Carolina.

Post-Star reporter Caton Deuso’s story about kids on bikes disrupting downtown traffic and being rude and fighting ran in a strip along the bottom of the front page on Sept. 7, under the water story.

Two short local stories by Alex Portal ran on Page A4 that day, and one story by Pete Tobey ran on the front of sports. 

The editorial page, which used to feature local editorials and columns several times a week, had an editorial from the Washington Post and two syndicated columns, one from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and another from Jonah Goldberg.

None of this is particularly the fault of Lee Enterprises. They could do better, but who couldn’t? I could have done better during the 29 years I worked at the Post-Star. But the paper was making a lot more money during most of those years and so had a much bigger staff, and that staff churned out stories and photos that filled several sections every day.

Technological change has been shrinking papers across the country, and hundreds have disappeared. People have spent many hours gabbing about what is killing newspapers when the answer is in their pockets.

Papers like the Post-Star offer online editions delivered to subscribers’ phones, but neither advertisers nor subscribers will pay anything close to print rates for the electronic product. As papers have made cuts because of shrinking revenue, subscribers have left, creating a cycle of diminishment.

It’s sad to see newspapers fading, and it’s not clear how the gap in the coverage of local news will be filled, or if it will be. Knowing what is happening at Town Board meetings isn’t a necessity for most people — not until taxes go up 10% or a quarry starts operating in their neighborhood, and then it’s, “Why weren’t we told?”

We are not going to be told about many things that affect us until someone again figures out to make money reporting the local news.

Flowers

Glens Falls is really on its flower game. Look around downtown — flowers are everywhere, in large, curbed beds around trees; in pots hanging from light posts; in standalone planters; and in the beds throughout City Park. Take away all the flowers and downtown would be a much less vibrant not to mention less aromatic place.

Someone is putting a lot of work into the flower beds along Glen Street, and it’s worth it.

These enormous planters adorn the WorkSmart building on Glen Street next to the library.

The beds in City Park have a wonderful variety of flowers and bushes.