Editor’s Note
Back in the old days — that’s less than a decade and before there were such things as blogs and interactive conversations with readers — editors used to respond to their newspaper readers with an “editor’s note.” Sometimes it clarified a point made in a letter to the editor. Sometimes it offered a correction. Sometimes it was just a simple explanation. An editor’s note was a handful of sentences; maybe a four or five paragraphs. It was always a personal link between the editor and the reader. Only difference between it and today’s blog is the immediacy and the platform. Welcome to Editor’s Note.

Beaten-down manufacturing city

January 21st, 2009 at 10:51am Linda Grist Cunningham

If the Rockford Register Star portrayed Rockford the way the Wall Street Journal’s Main Street blog does, the city’s mayor would likely be having apoplexy about the patronizing, negative tone  and demanding a sit-down with the editorial board. Instead, he’s putting out press releases waxing enthusiastic at how wonderful it is that the WSJ is noticing our little ol’ Rockford.

You can check out the Main Street blog though I warn you: Be prepared for the obligatory “big city reporter meets gritty small city” prose like this description: “… beaten-down Midwest  manufacturing city…” The posts are factual enough; I’m not quibbling about that.

And, Rockford has for 100 years or so been the darling of metro media when reporters wanted to find an “All-American city” close enough to a major metropolitan airport that access was easy; and far enough into the hinterlands that there might be a cornfield and a cow to mention.

I’m just amused at the mayor putting out a press release that boils down to “newspaper writes story about Rockford.” Maybe the next blog post ought to start out: “So quaint is this gritty little city that its mayor was wowed by our covering his town and issued a press release just to tell his folks we’d come to town.”

Be careful what you ask for.

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2 Comments Add your own

  • 1. thedudeabides  |  January 21st, 2009 at 11:43 am

    I don’t think the tone is necessarily patronizing or condescending.

    No more so than the 180 Degrees Project, which, btw, hasn’t been touched for 3 months.

  • 2. Linda Grist Cunningham  |  January 22nd, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    And, isn’t going to be. We took the concepts of that project and decided we could do them better on a daily basis rather than as one big thing. Hence, three new beats that launched this week: economy, power and jobs.

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