A Normal Day at a Really Bad Newspaper

The Comical really is a great nickname for our local newspaper.

How can a person take the thing seriously?

There’s the latest nonsense from MeMo (but on real pages):

A new Star is rising in your newspaper today as design changes in the Chronicle continue.

Your daily features section is getting a new look and a new identity. An eclipse is beginning and the name Houston will soon be replaced with a single gold star at the top.

Why the “Star?” Because its boundaries are limitless; the possibilities are endless. It’s all a part of our commitment to energize the newspaper and bring you the very best in news and features coverage.

You just can’t make this shite up. Umm, okay MeMo! Thanks for the Star.

Elsewhere, the transportation beat columnist urges drivers to speed (i.e. break the law), following from his dubious interpretation of Texas statutes:

My right to pass you in the left lane, even if I’m exceeding the posted limit, comes from § 545.051 of the Texas Transportation Code. The law requires that all drivers “moving more slowly than the normal speed of other vehicles at the time and place under the existing conditions shall drive in the right-hand lane.”

So if you’re doing the speed limit in the left lane and a line of cars is behind you waiting to pass, you are not only being rude, you are breaking the law.

Remember the saying: “Two wrongs don’t make a right?” It’s not your job to enforce the speed limits, which are kept below the normal speed of traffic because of poorly conceived environmental rules and the government’s greedy desire to collect revenue from fines. Also, freeways are designed for very fast speeds; the design speed is usually higher than the legal limit.

I guess it didn’t cross Lucas Wall’s small mind that he might actually call someone in law enforcement — HPD or DPS — and get an authoritative interpretation of the law. It’s more fun instead to offer one’s uninformed opinions, and then encourage speeding. Apparently, no editor at the Comical thought this was a problem, which reflects just as poorly on the editors of the rag. I’m guessing the twit got a speeding ticket recently and is just blowing steam. If there were editors at the Comical, they might have suggested his column wasn’t the place for it.

And then there’s Andrea Georgsson. She’s moved on from offering her leftovers to neighbors to this nitwittery:

As a newspaper journalist, I don’t want to spend too much time critiquing television. Print media, according to many Chronicle subscribers, has plenty of its own problems. Since those get regular airing on the letters page, I’ll just offer a couple of brief notes on two recent news items.

Illinois Republicans have tapped former no-chance presidential candidate Alan Keyes to run against Barack Obama for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat. The people of Illinois have every right to decide whether they wish to be represented in Washington by a talk-show host from Maryland, but the GOP’s landing on a black candidate to run against Obama, who also is black, nevertheless is rather cynical. What a colorblind coincidence. The Illinois Leader, a conservative online newsletter, endorsed Keyes’ candidacy on Friday, actually referring to the former U.S. ambassador as “articulate.” It’s just a little thing, but “articulate” is a term that activates black people’s insult radar. It is meant as a compliment, but overuse by whites to describe blacks gives it a patronizing ring. As in, “U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is very articulate.”

Like the Laci Peterson, Elizabeth Smart and JonBenet Ramsey stories, the media frenzy surrounding Lori Hacking’s disappearance makes me wonder whether there are any unattractive women, women of color or homeless people whose mysterious disappearance or murder continue to stump police.

Why aren’t the other stories of unsolved murders and missing persons made such critical news?

She’s packs a lot of nonsense into a small space (helpful when so much space is occupied by pictures because of Jeff Cohen’s redesign)! It just so happens that Alan Keyes IS articulate. He’s a great speaker. Are we at the point in our discourse now that we can’t use language that is honestly descriptive?

And I just love that concluding question — why don’t we spend more time covering the disappearances of ugly people?! She seems not to intend this as humor. This is apparently deep thought for Miss Georgsson. Personally, I wish she’d worry more about why her own newspaper has decided not to cover rail crashes as a matter of editorial policy. But maybe that’s the hook — maybe Miss Georgsson will insist that Lucas Wall write about train crashes when they involve ugly people?

But if you’re doubting that Miss Georgsson is smart, you shouldn’t:

Before TiVo, the television was rarely on in our house. I used to wonder how working people had time for it. By the time you had dinner, bathed the children and got them to bed, read a bit on your book club book and caught up even slightly on your New Yorker subscription, it was time for bed.

Now, because I pick what I’m going to watch, there’s a lot on television I’m willing to make time for. I rarely watched TV news before, but now I record one nightly BBC news program and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

She watches all the right programs and reads all the right publications! She really should have worked in that she listens to All Things Considered on NPR, though. That would have been perfect. Then we’d know she’s a genuine liberal intellectual. Because as it stands, it’s doubtful. Yeah. Right.

But my favorite today is this correction:

An article that ran on Page A1 on Saturday misstated information about a Sam Houston State University graduate. Marie Williams did not submit an application to the university while in high school, two of her siblings died in infancy, and her Huntsville home is in a rural area. She never worked more than 10 hours while in high school, and it is unclear how old she was when she picked cotton as a child.

Was there ANY part of the story that was correct?!

The Comical is a really bad newspaper. And it seems to get worse every day.