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[Rant] The Houston Chronicle is not a good newspaper

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by Cohete Rojo, Sep 17, 2017.

  1. Cohete Rojo

    Cohete Rojo Contributing Member

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    I don't think the Houston Chronicle (HC) is a great newspaper (see previous rant here). It's not even good; it use to be good [1].

    To build on the extension of whether Houston can ever be a great city again, I like to think that a "great city" needs to have a good newspaper, at the least. We don't have that.

    The hallmark of a great newspaper these days is its ability to produce visualizations from data - whether that data is publicly available or assembled from an investigative report. I'm sure we all know what the New York Times [2] and Washington Post [3] are capable of, but there are other news media making splashes with their graphics: WSJ [4], 538 [5], Reuters [6], Bloomberg [7], etc.

    When I look at the HC, I don't see anything resembling the above. Most of these publications have a separate graphics/data Twitter account to publish these visuals. The HC doesn't have that.

    Let me compare the HC to the Dallas Morning News (DMN). DMN is not quite on par with the NYT and they do not have a graphics/data account. However, when I went through the DMN this past week, I was impressed with their visuals [8] vs HC's visuals. Their team members do care about what makes great graphics reporting [9] (teams).

    I know the HC does publish data visualizations (some which I enjoy), but often times it seems that these visualizations are Tableau dump's - in which the color contrast is too low [10], the chart lacks axis titles [11], color schemes are bland or poorly chosen [11], categorical variables are not ordered [12], the wrong chart type is used [13], or in general the visual does not capture the eye.

    There are some graphics better than those linked to above, but I am dubious as to whether the HC produces any of these graphics and instead outsources their production [14] [15]. Maybe I'm missing something here; if I am please let me know.

    Data drives the visualization; visualization drives the narrative; and narrative shapes opinion [16]. That is what those great news publications listed above are doing. That is not what the Houston Chronicle is doing.

    Well, there it is.
     
  2. FTW Rockets FTW

    FTW Rockets FTW Contributing Member

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    Jon Feigen is the only decent writer there. The rest are putrid
     
    AroundTheWorld likes this.
  3. Salvy

    Salvy Member

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    Have you tried this?

    [​IMG]
     
    FLASH21 likes this.
  4. CometsWin

    CometsWin Breaker Breaker One Nine

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    When we lost the Post it was to the detriment of the whole city. A one paper town is always a bad thing for a city this size.
     
  5. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    You don't like The Chron?
     
  6. Ubiquitin

    Ubiquitin Contributing Member
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    Most newspapers period are **** because they cannot afford the newsrooms because the internet killed the classifieds. People on the whole do not use newspapers anymore and instead use the internet. But there was something special as a kid about opening the Chron to read about the Astros or what was going on in the world. This was in the 1990s, and I swear there was an evening edition as well.
     
  7. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    I'm afraid we're moving quickly into an era where local newspapers will just become jokes full of classified adds for lawnmowers and massages with happy endings. The economics just won't support them. (the San Francisco chronicle is a big time joke now, for instance, and I fear the LA Times won't be too far behind.)

    WaPo and NYT are basically national and international brands.

    Keep an eye on Bloomberg. They are on the come and their radio programming is ****ing good. I am pretty addicted to it now, supplanting sports radio.
     
    ghettocheeze and Hakeemtheking like this.
  8. Mr. Brightside

    Mr. Brightside Contributing Member

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    Does anyone still read a physical newspaper or just online version?
     
  9. Cohete Rojo

    Cohete Rojo Contributing Member

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  10. arkoe

    arkoe (ง'̀-'́)ง

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    Their only real source of revenue now is either getting you to pay for the pay section of the site or internet ads. No one pays so they're reduced to slideshow after slideshow to try to get their click counters up.
     
  11. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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    I'm 17 and what's a newspaper?

    Seriously, Newspapers are bleeding money and have been for 20+ years with the advent of the internet and electronic media. How do you hold a cohesive business together based on such an archaic technology (print)?

    Look, I worked for the Chronicle and my wife is a Librarian but we agree that print is almost dead as an informational medium. Sure, there will be collectors items and generationally people will cling to their habits but it's going away. How can you build good content on top of such a losing game? It's sad but that's the long and short of it.
     
    AroundTheWorld likes this.
  12. Cohete Rojo

    Cohete Rojo Contributing Member

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    HC has a website. NYT is not exactly bleeding money.
     
  13. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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    You're right about NYT but probably not the way you thought. Until a year ago, they were losing money. They are gaining some back via subscriptions but I don't think that's sustainable with the proliferation of information and the rise of instant news via social media.

    As far as Chron.com goes, it's rarely a destination for me. I have other venues to get Houston-based news.
     
  14. ghettocheeze

    ghettocheeze Member

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    One thing I dislike about newspapers especially in their online form is the amount of clutter on each page. Even the NYT, WAPO, etc are guilty of this. It's like they are all hell bent on preserving the old newspaper aesthetics regardless of how terrible it translates to web.

    For comparison, look at the minimalist design of Google News. It has the bare essentials: headlines, short text, neatly organized rows, keywords based navigation. Why can't newspapers create websites using good design principle that have been established for decades?
     
    Cohete Rojo likes this.
  15. Buck Turgidson

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    I don't give a **** about your "visualizations" or whatever. I like my paper made out of paper with coffee at 6AM.
     
  16. heypartner

    heypartner Contributing Member

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    Rate the last newspaper(s) you've read ...
     
  17. Buck Turgidson

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    NYT Sunday
    Austin Statesman (not terrible, not amazing, but I get it every day)
    Dallas Morning News (solid paper, on par with the Wash Post)
    LA Times
     
  18. heypartner

    heypartner Contributing Member

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    So, you give them no ratings?

    Maybe you thought you were in the "[Newspapers] What are you reading now" thread
     
  19. Buck Turgidson

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    I rate your post 0.06846 on a scale of zero to something good.

    All 4 of those papers do quality investigative reporting. Wash Post does the same, hell so does the Chronicle when it wants to.
     
  20. I am a Donut

    I am a Donut Contributing Member

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    I’m with Buck. Give me pages and pages of dense blocks of text. I will get my graphics fix in the comics section.
     

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