Quick Read

Now that I finally have a subscription to the Dispatch (I love Christmas presents), I will read the news, so you don’t have to… (Seriously)… Everyday, we will present the intriguing stories and the annoying stories, in a condensed format, that you can enjoy with your first sip of coffee (I said condensed)… Here is a review of the last three days (yes I hate old news also, but when you don’t have the internet, what are you going to do…)

How the Economy is Reshaping Sports (Front Page – Wednesday): Bill Rabinowitz’s story was without question, the best story I read… Insightful and illustrative… He paints a bleak, but truthful picture…

Since I’m mentioning sports have the top, I have to congratulate and crack the Dispatch’s Fiesta Bowl coverage… Tim May wrote an excellent feature on James Laurinaitis (Wednesday) and the reporting of Nathan Williams lockdown was great…

But, Ken Gordon’s front-page banner coverage of the non-news that Chris Wells hasn’t made up his mind (yeah right) was terrible… K.G., when someone holds a press conference to announce that no decision has been made, that’s not news… Also, if you read our story (that he is turning pro), you could have saved yourself some ink…

Equally nauseating was Michael Arace’s column coupling Ohio State basketball (yeah, did anyone notice we beat Iowa) and dentistry (it had all the appeal of Novocain) and the Metro Thursday front page about Fiesta Bowl activities (Brush with Greatness) was ridiculous…

Kathleen Parker’s commentary, on 2008 being the year of denouncing, was brilliant and hilarious… But that was offset today by the front-page story about downtown dwellers not fitting the young professional stereotype (if the story had a point, I couldn’t find it)…

Also, the last three days of news coverage was ambiguous… The story on the murder rate (Thursday) was solid, but it buried the lead… that only 44% of the murders actually get solved (its not scary that people are dying, its scary that no one knows who is doing the killing)… The story on the New Year’s shots fired was good, but it felt a step behind the television’s coverage…

I opened with the best story; I’ll close with the second best story… Metro third page (Friday) featured a story on movie releases and how they are executed… The story gave a great explanation of the process, but I must admit, the more I read, the more frustrated I became… (Why not just have the movies out so when I want to see them, I can…)