Is it just me or is the Daily Oklahoman getting worse?

[metro]

Despite the constant reviews from independent polls and reviews such as the Columbia Review Journal ranking the Daily Oklahoman the worst paper in the nation, I think the paper has become even worse since these ratings. While I do like the "new" layout the did a few years back, the news/stories are still fluff. I've noticed the quality of articles, etc. has gone significantly gone downhill over the last month. It's been at least a month since I've read a decent article worth reading.

Bennett and Co. if you get us a basketball team and demand an arena, we should demand a better paper from you in exchange.

[OKC PATROL]

We have a good sports section....its the only reason why anyone reads it anyway. duh

[Stinger]

We have a good sports section....its the only reason why anyone reads it anyway. duh

Yeah, if you want to read nothing but OU Football.

[Kerry]

Metro - citing poor score from the Columbia Journalism Review isn't helping you make your point. The CJR is about as for to the left as you can get. Just read their response to the take-over of Dow Jones by News Corp and you will learn all you need to know about the CJR.

[Oh GAWD the Smell!]

We have a good sports section....its the only reason why anyone reads it anyway. duh

Nuh-uh...I read it for the Ultimate Electronics ads.

[Pete]

They do a good job of covering local business and local sports and there are thousands of outlets for everything else. They never do any investigative journalism but that's common with papers of it's size.

As I've always said, they have a great website where you can read the last 7 or so papers just as if you were holding it (electronic edition) and fantastic archives.


And if you think the DOK is lousy, try checking out the Tulsa World.

[jbrown84]

I honestly don't buy into it. I really don't see a problem with it. Maybe there's just nothing interesting going on in the last month. There hasn't been much going on on this site in that same time frame. Correllation??

[BDP]

Just read their response to the take-over of Dow Jones by News Corp and you will learn all you need to know about the CJR.

I haven't read it, but it is a pretty scary deal. The WSJ has been a right leaning paper in its commentary, but usually at least had some sense of reason. If News Corp makes it a Fox News of the print world, it will become a pretty worthless piece of right wing claptrap and propaganda. But, I guess I'll just stop reading it. There is a real concern that News Corp will dumb down a good paper, as it has with many of its other acquisitions.

[Midtowner]

The DOK is essentially the mouthpiece of the Chamber of Commerce. They will never say anything bad about any businessman who is the least bit well-connected in the community.

All the stories about bad professionals are about doctors, lawyers, priests, teachers, etc... When was the last time you read a story about anyone in the business community ever doing something bad?

There's nothing wrong with that -- the paper requires advertising dollars to be profitable. You can't blame them for catering to their market. Also, if the paper actually did do investigative reports about, for example, the shady goings-on at OCURA, businesses might be less likely to invest here.

Let the Gazette take care of all of the good journalism. They're not half bad at it.

[Theo Walcott]

Not to mention a blatant OU bias. Anyone recall the incident where they launched an investigation into OSU basketball's phone records after it was discovered that things with Kelvin weren't exactly on the up and up?

Unbelievable stuff right there. Imagine the LA Times doing something like that to UCLA if it was discovered that USC had committed some violations. It would NEVER happen.

I digress...

[Saberman]

Most of the news stories are from the wire services, and a couple of days late. You can read most of the stories in yahoo news days before the Oklahoman runs it.

You really only get local news and sports, and for the most part poorly written.

[soonerguru]

Metro - citing poor score from the Columbia Journalism Review isn't helping you make your point.

Why not? The CJR is the bible of serious journalism, which, no offense intended, you apparently know very little about, based on your FOX NEWS-worthy commentary.

I'm guessing you're a right winger, in which case you think everything that challenges your world view is "way to the left."

FYI, I have a degree in journalism. What is your educational background?

[metro]

Most of the news stories are from the wire services, and a couple of days late. You can read most of the stories in yahoo news days before the Oklahoman runs it.

You really only get local news and sports, and for the most part poorly written.

Couldn't agree with you more.

[PapaJack]

Having recently spent two weeks in Beantown, I compared on a daily basis The Boston Globe and the electronic edition of The Oklahoman (TOK). I did not find a single news item of national importance that was not reported in both papers. TOK was right in step with the Globe, albeit the location or emphasis was different. I also noticed that both papers were rife with errors, grammatical and spelling. But at least TOK has color comics and recognizes the existence of sports other than MLB. A similar comparison of TOK with The Arizona Republic yeilded similar results.

I too am a Journalism grad, of OU. My time was back when broadcast journalism was taught in the School of Business, along with Advertising. I believe the decline in journalistic accuracy began with the rise in schlock journalism, cyber spelling, and USA Today. Coincidentaly TOK was one of the first newspapers in the country to utilize computerized grammar and spelling. It looks like the bloom has fallen off that rose.

As far as CJR is concerned, using them as the Bible of Journalism is like calling al Sadr the voice of all Islam. CJR was of questionable value in 1968 and I doubt if they have improved while TOK has "declined."

Finally, I actually believe TOK Sports Department has created a bias TOWARD OSU by trying to be totally fair and honest. To me they elevate mundane OSU news to the level of "breaking news" (a phrase I liken to "breaking wind" since all news worth reading is NEW) of OU. Still, on line readers of TOK concentrate heavily on OU articles. Doesn't OSU, the birthplace of the PC, graduate computer literates?

In summary, I am thankful that we "literates" still have print journalism to read with our morning Java. Hopefully the all too strong emphasis on "the bottom line"
will not put TOK or The Globe out of business. I find it hilarious that I am discoursing on print media via computer.

ps This may be a duplicate due to my own state of computer literacy. If so, I apologize. If not, you shoulda' seen my first diatribe.

[stlokc]

In my opinion, some of what PapaJack has said is quite accurate. The quality of just about every newspaper has declined in recent years. A large percentage of the population seems to no longer have the patience for long, in-depth investigative stories. They want the "quick hits" so common in USA Today, or the schlockiness that characterizes so much of broadcast "infotainment."

Having said that, it seems the DOK falls short of the majority of big-city papers. Now, I admit that I have not read that paper (in paper version) on any kind of a consistent basis for a while, since I no longer live in OKC. But on the ocassions that I do see it, what strikes me is how incomplete a lot of their stories are. When I was in journalism school, we were taught to look at both sides of an argument or an issue, get multiple sources from multiple points of view, and put together a balanced story. It seems a lot of the stories in the DOK (that I see on the web or that people have posted on this site) seem to be of the "press release variety." They answer the who, the what, the when and the where. But they don't get into the why. There might be quotes from someone with one point of view, but less often is there a balanced "yes, but..."

A couple of weeks ago, there was a story about the emergence of new shopping centers in OKC. It was a long piece and was generally good, but because it was long, I kept waiting for what I assumed would be the second part of the story: Is this proliferation of "lifestyle centers" a good thing for everybody? What has it done or will it do to emerging downtown districts? Can OKC really support all this new retail? Nothing like that was forthcoming. It said "5 million square feet will be built in 5 years." They didn't follow up with "Does that mean lots of new retailers that don't exist here yet, or does that mean a complete closing down of every mall, where is that 5 million coming from...OKC isn't growing that fast." That could have been a 3 or 4 part series: Shopping in the 21st century - First day: the new realities of retail. (which is pretty much the story they ran) Second day: the move towards new urbanism and will it get to OKC. Third day: What kinds of new retailers are being pursued? Use consistent graphics across the three days, provide national examples of what is happening in other places. It just seems like an opportunity lost.

The rush to do smaller, quick-hit stories can lead to errors. A week or two ago, the Chamber of Commerce incorrectly said that OKC's Gross Metopolitan Product was higher than Kansas City or San Antonio. The DOK printed that verbatim. It doesn't appear that an editor stopped to think about how that statement couldn't possibly be true. If the editors had used the occasion of that announcement to really delve into "What is a Gross Metropolitan Product?" (It's an interesting term that very few people are familiar with) they would have quickly realized the error. But it seems they more or less printed the Chamber spin verbatim.

(I will say that by and large, Steve Lackmeyer does a fantastic job with his reporting. They need to do everything they can to keep him around. He has obviously developed a real love for his beat and real relationships with sources. They are lucky to have him.)

But in short, when I have read the DOK, it has traditionally left me wanting more. Individual stories are often too short to adequately explore an issue. There are few true investigative pieces. (And the DOK is one of the wealthiest papers in the country - it could, as the St. Louis Post did, send reporters to Iraq to embed with Oklahoma guard units and bring localized stories to readers, but I suspect they didn't).

Woah, long diatribe. Sorry for that. Just my 2 cents.

[metro]

well said stlokc, their articles always leaving me wanting more, and not because the articles are like a good book, but because they often leave important viewpoints out.

[mecarr]

The Daily Oklahoman is a paper that has been against all progressive legislation from the past 50 years. From opposing the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, creation of Medicare and Medicaid, to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, The Daily Oklahoman has been a stubborn in its opposition to common-sense pieces of legislation.

[jbrown84]

That's called being conservative.

[striker]

I love the oklahoman. It's almost as funny bad to read as our news stations are to watch.

[cityguy]

That's called being conservative.

No. That's being reactionary. I wonder if The Oklahoman would propose taking Medicare away from our parents? Medicaid from our grandparents who couldn't afford a nursing home any other way? Get rid of the Voting Rights Act? They did, in fact, oppose all of these measures. If that's just being "conservative" I would hate to see them on a really far-right tangent. (sarcasm)

The Oklahoman is a lazy paper. Even the local news stories are covered with no gusto. They lack depth, they lack follow-up, basically - they lack good REPORTERS. They lack more Steve Lackmeyers. Now, there is a reporter.

The Oklahoman, as a whole, is a pretty pathetic newspaper. The online stories are updated by computer from their database. Every revision merits a new "story." How hard would that be to fix? Lazy.

[Midtowner]

Ah.. so the editorial board took positions you disagree with, thus, you have a bad paper and bad reporters?

I agree that on the whole, they lack depth, they are scared of certain issues and offending certain business leaders. They generally slant the news in a very chamber-of-commerce friendly way (not conservative or liberal by any means though). There is nothing conservative or liberal about the tort reform they recently tried to drum up support for, nor is there anything conservative or liberal about the roads and bridges money they keep trying to raise.

[stlokc]

I have no problem with a newspaper taking editorial stands on the editorial page. That's what newspapers do. You can agree with their stands, or disagree with them. My problem is when the editorial positions bleed over into the decisions about what news they do and do not cover, what questions they ask, what topics they shy away from.

By all means, be liberal, conservative, reactionary, communist, anarchist, I don't care, on the editorial page. But be balanced and fair in your actual reporting. With the DOK, I constantly wonder "What isn't being told here?"

[Pete]

Newspapers everywhere are drastically reducing their staff -- mainly in the newsroom -- because they are really losing their market share to other mediums, especially the Internet.

The irony is that newspapers are one of the very few places actual reporting really gets done... Everywhere else just regurgitates and talks about the news.

So, at a time when there is much more need for content (just a generation ago there were only the network affiliates delivering about an hour of news daily) there is much less to go around.

[soonerguru]

Great point, Malibu. I've actually defended the Oklahoman occasionally. Most recently, some former TV anchor was waxing all rhapsodic about how "newspapers are dying." I promptly reminded the guy that, unlike worthless local TV stations, newspapers actually produce original content, and therefore are more likely to survive on the Web, where original content is desperately sought after.

All in all, the OK has improved in recent years, but they do little if anything to keep our own congressional delegation in check. They do, however, LOVE to pick on small-time politicians who go awry. While this is good, there is no enterprise when it comes to holding our most powerful politicians' feet to the fire.

My biggest complaint about the Oklahoman -- which is one of the chief reasons they received the "worst newspaper in America" designation, is that they DO NOT disclose when their own ownership stands to lose or gain from a news item. For example, you found nothing in the Oklahoman about Gaylord's interest in Bass Pro Shop. This is an absolutely unacceptable abridgement of journalism ethics.

[Midtowner]

Great point, Malibu. I've actually defended the Oklahoman occasionally. Most recently, some former TV anchor was waxing all rhapsodic about how "newspapers are dying." I promptly reminded the guy that, unlike worthless local TV stations, newspapers actually produce original content, and therefore are more likely to survive on the Web, where original content is desperately sought after.

All in all, the OK has improved in recent years, but they do little if anything to keep our own congressional delegation in check. They do, however, LOVE to pick on small-time politicians who go awry. While this is good, there is no enterprise when it comes to holding our most powerful politicians' feet to the fire.

My biggest complaint about the Oklahoman -- which is one of the chief reasons they received the "worst newspaper in America" designation, is that they DO NOT disclose when their own ownership stands to lose or gain from a news item. For example, you found nothing in the Oklahoman about Gaylord's interest in Bass Pro Shop. This is an absolutely unacceptable abridgement of journalism ethics.

Very well put.

Don't forget the fact that they won't touch any major real estate developer or major employer.