NPR ran this story today about GateHouse Media, the company which owns the TAB and hundreds of newspapers across the nation.
NPR: Is GateHouse ‘saving small town journalism or eviscerating it’?
by Village 14 | May 8, 2018 | The TAB | 5 comments
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The Tab is vanishing in plain sight, yes, becoming a ghost paper.
Barely any local reporting, more generic GateHouse content, asking library staff to write “articles” to fill columns, just fewer and fewer local stories every week.
It will be a shame if the paper becomes a generic rag existing only to profit GateHouse. Maybe the Village 14 can take the Tab’s place and become an online local newspaper as well as a forum for discussion of local issues!
@Jan Don’t forget the weekly content provided from the Mayor, one from the office of the Mayor and typically a second from her communication staff
http://newton.wickedlocal.com/news/20180508/newton-residents-make-voices-heard-during-washington-street-visioning-session
Some of the high school sports teams are covered but did you know that there is a band within Newton South that is one of 12 jazz ensembles performing at an elite festival in NYC this weekend? Why don’t we know about this? Because there are no reporters covering the beat. I heard from a parent at Newton South. This is a really elite performance and no one knows about it.
School funding is a hot topic, but there are many interesting things we should know about our schools, our seniors, our police and fire fighters.
It is really sad that The Tab has vanished. It is a good place to send publicity, but there is no news coverage beyond the “hot” story on the front page, and even that isn’t always hot. There are many city issues happening with no coverage. It is now a large calendar of what to do.
I’ve always found it ironic that people are more ginned up by national and international news and events than in local ones – V14 users and controversial local issues like the new Newton North aside. This is in spite of the fact that what the Tab used to be able to cover in Newton impacts everyone’s daily lives, even if they’re not paying attention. But how else could, say, the WaPo and NYT be thriving – relatively speaking – while small papers like the Tab, thru no fault of its line staff, barely functions. Of course, part of it is a function of you know who being in office, but I don’t think the underlying cause is anything new. Whether Gatehouse can change the downward trajectory remains to be seen.