What do you miss from the Freep or News?

[RYANGUARD]

Yeah I miss the Free Press and the News.With every bullet so far.....

[gdogslim]

What I miss about the freep and news of days gone bye, NOT
Delivering the News on my bike on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
My bike would fall over at times and the papers would spill all over the street and I would be fing pissed and shout obsenities. Delivering in the winter? don't get me started on that. Thats why they ALL changed to cars and collecting money at the top level. Remember selling your route to the next sucker? Those gdamn papers were huge on those days and it was a pain in the ass delivering them.especially since I didn't have a Scwinn Typhoon like some of the serious boys. I also hated collecting money from the scumbags who would want a reciept or bill for the payment.
Other than that my parents got the freep because the news was too late,
Isn't Larry King just like Bob Talbert on TV. [[watch the norm mcdonald skit on youtube)
I think I made below minimum wage because of trying to collect from the cheap bastards who didin't pay or who were never around to answer the door.

Now I feel better for venting.

[daddeeo]

Action Line on front page of Free Press.

[ggores]

A bit too young to exactly remember many of the great names of journalism thrown about. Being a retired News Carrier with more than 200 customers on average, my life centered around "breaking bundles" "filling inserts" and basically trying to do everything possible to run the Free Press into oblivion.

Now THAT is what we used to call "competition". Detroit, like so many other American Citie's, at least held a claim to excellent journalisim that was not pidgeon-holed and strictly divisive and politically partisan. No. Well, I am STILL on strike with my Union Brethren. Still pissed after all these years. All I know is that the Detroit news publications were being watched closely by every major City in the USA [[Philadelphia, Chicago, etc) for how the demise of print-media would play out. And by golly if it didn't happen. Sure, I read the free Detroit News online, and even sometimes [[arrrrrgh - a neat little C&K reference there) the Free Press, it is really disappointing to see that noone READS anything anymore. The print version of either newspaper is an exercise in Attention Deficit Syndrome. Hell, it used to take a full two hours to scan the paper. Nowaday it [[scanning the newsapaper) take 15 minutes tops.

That's what ya call venting, folks.

For my dime, I miss the DRC race results. Not that I am a gambler by any means, but I could spend easily an hour in the Sports section. Another hour in the "Weekend section" and another hour in the... what did they call the movie listings back then? Oh, I think "The Metro Guide" section. Selah. How many Friday evening's to sit around and belay the newest flicks coming out.

[daddeeo]

I remember as a carrier hardly being able to fold a Wed. newspaper. Now they are the size of Saturday's paper. Hardly enough to fill the bird cage.
I really miss all the columnists you know like Art Buchwald, Erma Bombeck, Jack Anderson etc. You have to go out and get a N.Y. Times to see anything like that these days.

[Al Publican]

Remember the Sunday magazines in the Freep and News? I miss them.

[pffft]

Nostalgia is fine, but when it clouds reason...Erma Bombeck was never in the NY Times, nor would she be today, nor is there anything resembling Erma Bombeck in the NY Times. Really...

[daddeeo]

Gail Collins writes a humor column [[ in case you missed it) in the N.Y. Times.
She isn't exactly Erma Bombeck but she'll do for now. Maureen Dowd is also
pretty funny too.
It's hard to get a Chicago Tribune around here during the week but that would be my second choice.

[pffft]

Somehow I don't see the link between Gail Collins' columns and a column by a wacky housewife about those darn kids, what'll they do next...

[daddeeo]

Sarcastic humor ok?

[dookie joe]

Yeah, I miss the good ol' days of "real journalism," when a newspaper magnate could create a war out of thin air. That was in the good ol' days....1898.

And Susan Ager? Really? That was real journalism? Reading about her orgasms, and how she enjoyed vacuuming naked? Er...okay. Personally, I'll take the Kwame text message stories, or the stories by both the News and Freep that have exposed various corruption by Kwame, Ferguson, et al anyday over those "good ol' days."

As one person said: there are still good journalists out there, although there aren't as many as there used to be, thanks to corporate cutbacks.

But to lament for the "good old days" and pretend that there's no good journalism now is a joke.

[daddeeo]

Most rags have sunk so low that the National Inquirer is starting to look good.

[pffft]

dookie joe, the voice of reason.
Don't forget Susan A.'s showering nude columns...
There were a lot of silly things in the old days, Charley Manos' hot pants contests come to mind, as well as Bob Talbert's restaurant "reviews." It's a mistake to idealize the past that much.

[daddeeo]

Have to admit, these are the good old days.

[Gannon]

Here's what Dictionary.com says about the matter:

jour·nal·ism

–noun

1. the occupation of reporting, writing, editing, photographing, or broadcasting news or of conducting any news organization as a business.
2. press1 [[ def. 31 ) .
3. a course of study preparing students for careers in reporting, writing, and editing for newspapers and magazines.
4. writing that reflects superficial thought and research, a popular slant, and hurried composition, conceived of as exemplifying topical newspaper or popular magazine writing as distinguished from scholarly writing: He calls himself a historian, but his books are mere journalism.





Susan Ager fits all four. Period. I won't stand to let her be maligned without a fight.


Accusing her of anything less, due her ASSIGNMENT as 'Personal Interest' columnist...just because YOU don't agree with what she and her editor agreed to print...shows that you are perhaps using too narrow a definition of the word. [[and you didn't need to read it)



Same with Talbert. I know generations of people who enjoyed nearly every word he wrote...and learned a great deal about a city that had become somewhat unapproachable the decade previous [[at least to those who bailed to the suburbs in fear after the riots and civil unrest). He helped many discover parts of Detroit that they might otherwise have never found.


I hold them BOTH in high esteem, and our city is lessened without their perspectives of their paths through life...sharing the people, places, and experiences they encountered.


Cheers

[Gannon]

Plus, who showers any other way?!

WTF?

[pffft]

Sorry, wrote that too fast...it's the frequency of nudity in her columns that sort of gives many of us the giggles. The "nude showering" I meant was, she detailed, more than once, how she shared a shower with her hubby every morning. Every single a.m. Even ran through the details of who got in first, the soap...wow, just too much information. There are lots of things to write about, w/o having to force images of one's self nude on one's readers all the time.

Thankfully, Maureen Dowd doesn't do this...

[littlebuddy]

I remeber Contact 10. I was out at Camp Dearborn for a month once and met some girl or wanted to know who she was, so I wrote a letter to Contact 10 asking if they could find out and gave it to my Aunt who I was staying with to mail. But she gave it to my mom instead. Did meet the girl anyway later on.

[dookie joe]

Gannon, I realize a lot of people dug Talbert and Ager. A lot of people like Britney Spears, too.

However, I never once suggested that either columnist should've produced hard-hitting journalism; I'm well-aware that their job descriptions didn't call for that kind of writing. I know they were feature writers. I just happen to think they were crappy feature writers.

It's a matter of taste, I suppose, and far be it from me to berate you for liking what you like. If you thought Talbert and Ager were the bee's knees, I'm not going to say you're wrong for it, since we're all entitled to our opinions.

My whole point, I suppose, was to question the contention of some here who lament the absence of good jouarnalism in Detroit. It's simply not true. Is there as much good journalism as there used to be? Of course not -- again, thanks to corporate cutbacks. Obviously, a newroom staff of 300 will be able to gather more news than a staff of 50; and the economies of scale dictate that the larger staff would also have more good/great reporters.

But I think the death of Detroit journalism has been greatly exaggerated.

[dookie joe]

Plus, who showers any other way?!

WTF?

Come on, Gannon -- you've never showered with your lady while wearing a Donald Duck suit and a snorkel? Dude, you don't know what you're missing!

[Carey]

Ager could get embarrassing as a columnist, but she was a hard-ass, fearless reporter and an excellent writer in her younger days. I was a fan, and I recall two long stories in the old DFP magazine: One was about Tom Monaghan, then the owner of the Tigers, that really exposed what a kook the guy was when he spending money like crazy, buying up Frank Lloyd Wright homes, Tiger memorabilia and even Drummon Island. The other was about the hidden tensions on a block in Rosedale Park that was undergoing racial and class change.

[Gannon]

Come on, Gannon -- you've never showered with your lady while wearing a Donald Duck suit and a snorkel? Dude, you don't know what you're missing!

Thanks for that...my 'bucket list' is now a little longer!

[GOAT]

I miss Mitch Albom not being in the news. God he is such self-serving SOB. Please for the love of Christ, can he just piss off somewhere?

[dookie joe]

Amen, Goat. I can't stand that smug little bastard.

Some people poo-poohed his "mistake" involving his column about Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson; they point out that journalists often will pre-write a story to make deadline. It's true that stories are sometimes written in advance, but there's a crucial difference.

A reporter might pre-write a story about, say, a City Council measure that's expected to pass. In a case like this, the reporter would write up all the background information about the issue, and then leave room at the top for the new developments. The reporter might even write up the story as if the measure had already passed, if it's something that's likely to be approved. Then the writer can come back later and tweak the story -- and change it, should the measure be unexpectedly voted down.

Albom's column, on the other hand, supposedly was inspired by the very "fact" that MSU alumni Cleaves and Jason Richardson took the time out of their busy schedules to come to their alma mater to watch a Final Four game.

The piece was written in such a way to make the reader believe that Albom ran into Cleaves and Richardson at the game and was moved to write the column. He "looked around the stands" and realized that life is precious; that people shouldn't be in such a big hurry to grow up -- and, when he saw those two millinoaire ballplayers at the game, he was moved to impart to his readers another one of his finger-wagging "life's lessons."

So the entire column was built on a foundation of bullshit. Albom didn't see Cleaves and Richardson at the game -- so how could he have "looked around the stands" and come to that realization?

Anyone who thinks the Free Press was right not to fire Albom doesn't get it. His ass should've been gone the minute that "mistake" was discovered.

[DC48080]

Agreed. Mitch Albom is an annoying pseudo-intellectual, self righteous gasbag. He has zero credibility.

The fact that The Free Pravda continues to waste paper printing his drivel is one of the reasons that I cancelled my 30 plus year subscription to that rag several years ago.