What is The Buffalo News thinking?

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The vacant Buffalo News building, sold to developer Douglas Jemal.

Lee Enterprises bought The Buffalo News nearly five years ago and has vandalized it since. That was never more evident than last week.

Let’s start with the extensive use of New York Times obituaries. It’s a pet peeve of mine. 

A week ago Sunday, the paper’s local section included no fewer than five such obits, totaling some two pages, almost as much space as as what was devoted to local news in the section. 

As is usually the case, the deceased had no connection to Buffalo. In fact, most were complete strangers to a vast majority of the paper’s readers. For example, there was David Lodge, a British author who satirized academic life, and Jocelyn Wildenstein, a Swiss-born socialite. 

Ever heard of them? Me neither.

Compare that with the number of obits The News published that day on deceased Western New Yorkers. That would be zero.

That was par for the course. Thursday’s paper featured a full page of Times obits. It published none on local people. Friday’s paper included two more Times obits that took up three-quarters of a page. Again, no local write-ups.

I don’t get it. 

The News devotes little of its news hole to local news. (Sports gobbles up much more.) Why devote so much of the space in the local section to Times obits? The News could probably increase the amount of local news it prints by one-third if it published the work of its own reporters rather than regurgitating obituaries from The Times and printing house ads promoting its paid death notices.

Seems simple.

That’s not all that rankled me about The News last week.

The paper’s website published an advertisement for a weight loss product as its lead story for a spell early Tuesday afternoon.

I checked back a little while later and saw that it was gone, but ads masquerading as news were posted elsewhere on the homepage. 

One, under Recommended For You, hawked deals for senior citizens. Under The Latest, The News posted real estate listings, complete with the name and phone numbers of agents and brokers. 

Posting advertisements as stories violates the most basic of journalistic ethics. This is 101 kind of stuff.

Then, on Thursday, The News announced it was killing off Gusto, its weekly entertainment tab. It was a mercy killing in a sense. 

Gusto was gutted years ago, stripped of its listings and critics who had retired or been run off, never to be replaced. (The paper’s arts and culture coverage used to be a strength. It’s now practically non-existent.)

The News said that Gusto stories would instead publish elsewhere during the week, including the Sunday entertainment section. Mind you, that section largely consists of wire copy and there is no entertainment section the other six days of the week. 

I can kind of understand eliminating Gusto from a strictly economic perspective, although it gives readers one more reason to cancel their subscription. Posting ads as news stories is another matter. Exercising good ethics doesn’t cost a penny and the paper pays a heavy price in lost credibility when it fails to do so.

Lee is doing a disservice to both the community and The News’ journalists, who are working hard to put out a respectable paper under very difficult circumstances. 

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Politico explains.  

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Jerry Zremski offered a similar take in yesterday’s Buffalo News.

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I leave you with the wit and wisdom of George Carlin as he decodes the way politicians talk.

Jim Heaney