Weekend Wrap Up

The PE
Good story about how cargo affects the Inland area by a slew of reporters. Did it deserve to be such a big project with so much type dedicated to it? Nope. Too long and the graphics of what is in my house isn’t needed.

Mr Begley was a busy man. He also wrote about vacationers staying closer to home for the summer. Um, Mr. Begley and editors who pitched this tripe: the summer is almost over and quit writing non-trend stories.
What’s next a trend story on the rise in popularity of people driving green colored cars on Mondays?

Reporter Michelle Klampe had another trend story about teachers using high-tech devices. Not only has that story been done by every media outlet in America, the PE did that same story less than a year ago. How hard is it for reporters to check the paper library to see if the story has been done?

Mr. Sean Nealon did a tubers story. It was much better than the tuber Olympics in the Cal a week ago, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. How is that for some bad writing? Why do I need two large grafs of color when the third graf is the lede:
A truck loaded with 50,000 pounds of Chieftain potatoes coated in dirt from an Anza field arrives at the San Jacinto packing shed. Immediately, the red potatoes get a bath and, dripping, ride a conveyer belt inside.
Several dozen workers pick out dried grass and discard misshapen and rotten potatoes. Machines sort the potatoes by size and drop them into 50-pound boxes.
A year ago, Agri-Empire, a 63-year-old company in San Jacinto that farms 4,000 acres of potatoes in Southern California, sold those boxes for $20. Today, it is getting twice that.
That’s called being too cutesy and an editor should have caught that.

When I opened the local section I thought Mr. Aaron Burgin had done the story of weekend. The photo by Kurt Miller was classic with a lady straddling a small flood ditch and looming apartments in the background.
Then I started reading the story:
Lake Elsinore's failure to completely address runoff issues plaguing neighbors on a street in an unincorporated pocket could spoil its plans to annex the land.
I would have went with color or a story from one of the people in the neighborhood about the run off. This lede fails the photo and fails the story. It’s boring and it could be used for anything. It’s a template lede.
“Hollywood’s failure to completely address spiderman shooting webs on a street in town could spoil its plans to create Spider Land.”

Kudos to Jeff Horseman for doing a short overview on hospital construction in the area. I think the story needed people who would be affected because that would have brought the story home. At least it was a good idea.