Smaller, Thinner, More Expensive: Your Guide To The "Improved" Columbus Dispatch

It's tough times for print media in the internet age.  Readership and ad income are down.  Our local fish-wrap, the Dispatch, has switched to smaller paper, consolidated its sections, reduced content and cut staff.  It often has out-of-focus photos and torn or wrinkled pages.  Reading the whole thing these days takes about five minutes, and it's as shallow as the 6 o'clock news on TV.  (With their common ownership, the morning Dispatch is damn near identical to last night's WBNS 10TV newscast.)

With their latest round of "improvements", Buster offers the following consumer guide to understanding and using "Ohio's Greatest Home Newspaper":

Section A -- Front page, plus national and international stories from wire services and the few remaining real newspapers like the NY Times and the Washington Post.

Section B -- Metro & State.  Contains (1) mug shots of black people and in-bred crackers who've committed sensational central Ohio crimes, (2) obituaries, and (3) the editorial and op-ed pages, now down to just two daily columnists, a handful of letters to the editor from local wing-nuts, and the daily simplistic editorial, usually with a topic like "Jobs Are Good."  (The editorial pages have long been managed by a raging far-right crank by the name of Glenn Sheller.*)

Section C -- Business, a.k.a. the restaurant section.   Restaurants are apparently our major form of commerce in Columbus.

Section D -- Sports.  "The sports pages record man's accomplishments, the front page his failures."  Pretty much the only worthwhile section, but under pressure.  Local writers cover the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Columbus Blue Jackets, period.  (And a bit too much CBJ for my tastes.)  Ohio pro teams coverage comes from Cleveland and Cincinnati writers.  The rest is wire service.  There was once a daily blurb summarizing every major league baseball game.  Now it's just four or five.

Section E -- Life & Arts.  Comics, generally shitty.  Best?  Dilbert.  Worst?  Eternal Peanuts reruns.  Also includes the highly useful TV guide -- evening broadcast only.  An  occasional good column from Joe Blundo.  Once a week there's a "Faith & Religion" page.  News you can use.

That's all they wrote, and it ain't much.  With home delivery prices going up a couple times a year.  And your soggy paper in a torn plastic bag halfway down your driveway.

Why do I bother?  See ya on the interwebs!
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Of possible interest or amusement . . .

Sheller

*Editorial Page Manager Mr. Sheller rarely puts his own name to any of the Dispatch's conservative opinion pieces, even though such columns and editorials are par for our local course.  But he did once back in 2009, writing an opinion piece in which he ranted that pending legislation concerning health care and carbon emissions would be an unconstitutional apocalypse depriving us of our liberty and freedoms.

My rather flaming letter-to-the-editor (i.e. Sheller) reply ended like so:

"If he's true to his word, Sheller should quit the Dispatch, stuff all his cash and guns into his pickup truck and move to the Freeman Ranch in Montana.  There he can stop paying taxes, drop off the grid, and have all the liberty he wants, all by himself."

Kinda glad they didn't print it.