Just a few short weeks ago, Reading had a familiar daily roll of tat -The Reading Evening Post.
Everyone in the UK has a largely pointless, frequently laughable local paper – it’s what makes us who we are, etc etc. I thought, at the time, few would mourn when it ceased to be printed.
Alas, the replacement service is two weekly papers (why bother with the news from a few days ago and why have them two days apart instead of three or four?) and the associated Get Reading website has become progressively more demented with every passing day - which is amusing, yes, but also rather terrifying as it has now become the main news source of the local area.
I have started to post less frequently on the comments boards, as I am slightly concerned that a few people who used to use the service to leave a few useful comments have now joined in with the mental chaos of the site. It is now easier to post random comments and create a fantasy world through the site than to treat it as a genuine, reality based mouthpiece for the community.
A large reason for this is, I suspect, that despite the website having been hyped up by the owners as being of more consequence for the local populace after the end of the daily EP, the number of news stories posted on the website has obviously decreased. The quality and value of many stories (small fire at house - saucepan slightly damaged and nobody hurt - being one of my favoured examples) has failed to improve.
Of particular note this week was a piece written by someone in very basic draft form, and then seemingly slipped onto the website by accident. The content was seemingly without purpose and the writer a failed GCSE English student - notably, “police arrived and moved him and his mates on” then referring to football as “footie.” Passable in conversation (some would say – I appreciate others would argue this), but also barely literate, obviously not submitted via a decent editor and of little value to any readers. . The subject – “tiny” pre-teen ignored a police dispersal order, the reason for which went unreported – means absolutely nothing to anyone not already in possession of the facts (and for whom the report would seemingly be pointless).
How much are people being paid to churn out such poorly written pieces about so very little of consequence? Without spending time to get some genuine insight into the stories, the majority of articles contain no depth, perspective, few facts, little value...
Whilst some of the writers are clearly professional journalists, many of them churn out the same sort of ill-conceived rubbish I can do here – on a blog, which does not pretend to offer an unbiased public service.
It would appear that an average current local newspaper offers significantly more value than the way forward for local news reporting.
NOTE – If you have the surname Makepeace, do not allow the media to print your surname. It will result in hysterical laughter in offices across Reading.
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