Do Newspapers Have Their Foot in the Grave?

'The Messenger Inquirer' is the newspaper for Owensboro, Kentucky, my hometown. I really only read it for the sports updates from the local high schools and to see where my favorite professional teams were in the standings. It provided information from upcoming events in the town and local road closings and openings. It always seemed that the paper was missing something though. There wasn't really anything drawing me in other than the article every now and then on the Quarterback for the Kentucky Wildcats and what to expect from him in the upcoming game. Our town would seem like a bore to a visitor wondering what was going on in our small knitted community. Occasionally they would mess up somebody's name was misspelled, which was comical, yet frustrating.

The advertisements inside consisted mostly of ads for local businesses and services. A coupon was placed here and there for Kohls or local restaurants having deals. Lots of folks are subscribed to the paper though, because people still enjoyed knowing what was going on in our town. Older people in our town were more in tune with it then the younger crowd. My parents preferred the physical copy over the internet version and I only knew a couple of people who actually read it online.

I think the articles would be more interesting if the stories weren't similar to other articles that you could easily access from more established news media like CNN or ESPN. The originality was lacking at best. It seemed like they almost copied word-for-word what articles on yahoo were saying about subject. They need more opinionated writers on subjects such as the Ray Rice case. I don't want to read regurgitated and hashed stories that were already dished out from other media sources. After I got my smartphone I would go to Bleacher Reports and only read The Messenger Inquirer when I was bored at work and needed to waste time.

After talking to a few friends and family about what they thought our newspaper they offered a few suggestions. My Aunt commented that they could use innovated stories about things like the iPhone 6 and apps/technology that will differ from the current models. Stories that shed light on where phones were heading and how we can adapt them into our lives more efficiently. Also, why we should or shouldn't choose to purchase this model compared to other phones.

For now i'm only interested in the scores for high school games. Maybe as new writers come in, the tone of the newspaper will change.