"finalizing our exact content improvement roadmap for 2013,"

WTF does that mean?

I think it is code for "Your local newspaper is going to report less local news, because Gannett Information Central has lots of canned stuff from other places that will cost us next to nothing."

My wife and I were nearly gagging when we read that tripe from the publisher. Just how dumb does she think we all are?

I would recommend one major improvement. Get rid of that "Adventuress" crap and send that young woman to journalism school. It seems that The Star's intent is to feature her in various scenes of being nearly disrobed in order to pick up to the drooling moron readership.

The Star has reduced its one editorial per day to zero. The "editorial" page consists of various and sundry columns, mostly of the right wing nutcase variety. Of course, the page now is titled "conversations."

New, and content-free. Lighter, less-filling. No gluten. No eggs. No nuts. No sugar. No trans-fats.

No taste.

Nice job, Seneca, throwing around labels like "right wing nutcase." That always brings the discussion to a higher level. I always wonder why people, when they disagree with a point of view these days, resort to namecalling. It's called an opposing view. Or maybe they're just telling the truth. That being said, the Star is barely worth reading anymore.

Tim Swarens and his sidekick, Varvel, hold views that I would consider marginalized, fueled by the fear and greed of southern white boys in the New America. Gun-totin', black-boy fearin', sons of the sod.

Sometimes, they are indeed nutcases, and they are right-wing, although neither term is inherently bad-- they imply irrationality and the greed of mindless capital conservation.

I find myself agreeing with Seneca. We are the new North Alabama with every negative connotation that this moniker implies.

". . . with every negative connotation that this moniker implies."

Thank you, hendy. That is what I was trying to say.

". . . the Star is barely worth reading anymore."

Thank you, boomer. At lease we agree on one thing.

As to "nutcases," don't you realize that there are left wing nutcases, too?

But there seem to be no middle-of-the-road nutcases. By definition, I suppose.

oops.

At least we agree . . .

Yes, there are left-wing nutcases. Sometimes, I am one of them. Other times, I can point to Robert Reich, who has an uneducated, but overstated and blustering view on every single political topic in America today. Some call him a pundit. I call him an individual with an obsessive need to blather and spew, so long is it's on camera, mic, or the HuffPo, charicaturizing most of the issues he covers.

When I do my op-ed columns in the IBJ, I'm not the only individual that goes after education issues, labor problems, and the good-old-boy networks. Iconoclasm knows no political party persuasion.

hendy, er, actually, the left wing nutcases remark was aimed at boomer.

I should have been more clear.

Going after "education issues, labor problems, and the good-old-boy networks," imho, is not iconoclasm. It is being responsible, like pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. In this city there are a lot of bare emperors. But that is just my opinion.

Re: Ms. Crotchfelt, I especially liked the part where she said she would be beefing up the news staff (or words to that effect). I'm sure that is music to the ears of all my friends there who lost their jobs over the last few years.
Also, as they "improve" their online content, things get worse. I am a subscriber, since I am also a print subscriber. Today the only thing they gave me was the crossword puzzle.

Thursday, February 7, the Star ran a story on the front page of its print edition and on one of the W section pages about Abraham Lincoln. Same story, different headline, with different pictures, and the one in W section did not carry a byline. Both stories had the same credit line at the end.

"Repurposing," I suppose. But in the same edition?

Hey. That content cost money. Gotta use it as much as you can.

There's a managing editor with a bit of egg on his/her face. But as it's usually content-free anyway, we should be happy that there was some.

There is a managing editor?

Who woulda thunk?