Bloodletting continues at the Muskegon Chronicle

by: PerfectStormer

Sun Jan 25, 2009 at 21:53:33 PM EST

Except that it's hard to cover local news when you don't have any reporters. Today the axe fell on the Chronicle's newsroom, taking with it Clayton Hardiman, long-time Chronicle fixture Susan Harrison-Wolffis, long-time features and entertainment writer Bill Iddings, and reporters Lisa Medendorp, Robert Burns and Terry Judd. Feature columnist Susan Treutler and courthouse beat reporter Steve Gunn had already suffered similar fates. Also cut were Metro Editor John Stephenson (disclaimer: John Stephenson's wife was my 7th grade science teacher), photo editor Greg Dorsett, artist Mark Donnelly, editorial page editor David Kolb, assistant news editor Stan Harrison and contributor John Jarvi.

As a reader of the Chronicle, you may be wondering what's left. The answer is...not much. The "new and improved" Chronicle uses a lot of articles without bylines--the infamous "From Local Reports"  article, punctuated by gory photos of car crashes and house fires. Also, someone at the Chronicle apparently thinks we're interested in what MLive readers think, as snippets from the website's message boards are now printed in the paper. Gone are the days of a thoughtful and thought-provoking theater review by Bill Iddings, replaced by the poorly punctuated ramblings of GothGirl39 and *cough* PerfectStormer.

Interestingly, the sports section has been left largely untouched (save the aforementioned reassignment of Cindy Fairfield, replaced by veteran sports reporter Tom Kendra, who's doing exactly the same things Fairfield did in exactly the same way she did them). Also spared the axe was Grand Haven-based columnist and troublemaker Tracy Lorenz, whose beat consists largely of pissing off Chronicle readers and generating tons of hate mail on the Chronicle's editorial page.

We all understand the economic reality of running a dead-tree paper in a pixels-and-electrons world, but I'd much rather pay 50 cents a day for solid reporting and cogent analysis than 50 cents a day for the antics of fratboy gadfly Tracy Lorenz and the pointless ranting of GothGirl39 PerfectStormer.

If Booth Newspapers' management is listening, I'll make you a deal: I'll trade you a Paul Keep for a Steve Gunn and a Lisa Medendorp. Paul Keep seems lost and adrift, doing his damnedest to right a sinking ship against the rising tide of the electronic juggernaut. In that situation, what's needed isn't the bravado of the captain, but the hard work, sweat and tears of the sailors.