Does Palo Alto need three newspapers? Palo Alto Issues, posted by Weekly Reader, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on May 24, 2008 at 11:30 am
At time when newspapers are closing down and losing readership, Palo Alto is increasing the number of newspapers to 3. Am I the only one who thinks this is strange? We also have a newspaper devoted to Stanford issues so in some regard we could say we have 4. Any predictions as to what will happen next? Is Palo Alto different from everywhere else?
Posted by OhlonePar, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on May 24, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Well, the Daily's part of the SJ Merc chain and the Merc has been a very, very unhappy place since Dean Singleton took over. I suspect that the new paper is a response to that.
The Merc has gone from a Pulitzer-winning paper to a podunk paper losing sections by the day. I picked up the Chron the other day and was reminded of what a metro paper felt like.
The Merc.'s lost a ton of its advertising base and there's a cheesy boosterism to its coverage (i.e. the sheer shallowness of its MI coverage) that just irritates me. It's got to be completely discouraging to work there or at one of its adjunct papers.
I expect we'll be back to a two-paper town one way or another. The advertising base to support three just isn't there.
Frankly, though, if the Chron wanted to do a decently zoned Santa Clara edition, I'd drop my Merc. subscription, I'm also ready to do that anyway.
Posted by A fan, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on May 25, 2008 at 10:22 am
I'm delighted that Dave Price and Diana Diamond are teaming up again to bring us an interesting and fun newspaper. I loved it when they stirred things up in the old PA Daily. Perhaps we'll get some reporting and editorials with some bight to them, instead the usual boring platitudes.
Welcome back Dave and Diana. We've missed you, I'm eagerly awaiting your return.
Posted by Tim #2, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on May 25, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Since the current editor and staffing took over and ousted then Managing Editor Diana Diamond and other reporters, the PA Daily has been a disaster (with the exception of Kristina Peterson). It is a clone of the SJ Mercury News which owns it. In fact, if one reads the morning Mercury, that pretty much covers whatever is on page one of the Daily plus some local sports, lots of real estate - and the "society page". That's about it. The editorials about "local" issues substantiated the fact that the editors have no 'institutional memory' and don't know a thing about Palo Alto. They were brought in from the East Bay. Letters to the editor are often from Burlingame, San Mateo, and every place other than PA and nearby cities. Welcome back, Dave, Jim, and Diana. The 7th floor at City Hall is probably not happy.
Posted by Jarred, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on May 25, 2008 at 11:53 pm
As a fan of Diana Diamond, I can't wait. The PA Daily News has become pretty useless. I'm looking forward to Diana giving PA city government the scrutiny and criticism they so richly deserve.
Posted by Rick, a resident of the Charleston Gardens neighborhood, on May 26, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I'm glad to hear another newspaper is coming.
I hope it a real news paper and not just a censored advertising paper.
Free papers are just for the paid ads or supported by the business community and only printing "approved,censored" things.
To really report whats really going on here they will have to charge for the paper and not rely on advertising as the businesses will not support a newspaper that will disclose what a mess the city is in.
I have thought of starting a neighborhood/south Palo Alto newsletter to let oridinary residents what is really happening and what danger they are in from the big time developers. And how available city money is being spent on business promotion, noney laundering for businesses and the possible things coming to extract money from homeowners for use in special areas of the city, North Palo Alto specifically.
Posted by Daily News fan, a resident of the Professorville neighborhood, on Jun 3, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I'm dismayed that Dave Price will be bringing another rag to Palo Alto. It's insulting to our intelligence as a thoughtful community that knows the difference between real news and sensationalized, inaccurate, advertorial content. Check out the Web site (baydailypost.com) and his infamous "Town Talk" section to see what I mean. No real journalist tries to mask a collection of paid advertisements as objective community news. Give me a break. I'd much rather support the hard-working team at the Daily News that knows a little something about objectivity, ethics and fact-finding. Price is more interested in delivering a check to the bank than in delivering a quality newspaper to this city's residents.
Posted by carolyn, a resident of Menlo Park, on Jun 20, 2008 at 4:56 am
I hope it lasts longer than that. Dave Price's sense of humor is back ... the headline Wednesday was "Dumbest suspect award goes to ..." The Post has had a lot of useful stories, too, like a comparison of city electric rates with PGE. And I can't help but notice that, at this hour, the three top stories on the Palo Alto Online site (College Terrace construction, hotel proposed for Palo Alto Bowl and HP job cuts) were all stories that first appeared in the Post.
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