Thursday, October 13, 2011

Local

Do you read a local newspaper? Either the kind that gets tossed onto your doorstep in the morning or the kind you access over whatever device you use?

I can't imagine not reading one; actually, I can't imagine not having an old-fashioned subscription. Yes, I know that makes me old-fashioned.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because my local paper, the San Antonio Express-News, has been (like all of them) undergoing all sorts of hard times, and lately has had a whole bunch of personnel churn, the latest of which is that their great local columnist Cary Clack is leaving (electoral politics angle: he's going to work for local state rep Joaquin Castro, who is taking on redistricted Member of Congress Lloyd Doggett in a fierce primary battle). It's a tough blow; when I started reading the E-N a decade ago it had tons of interesting local voices, and virtually all of them are now gone. Which means that it's gone from being a real newspaper to a wire service clipping operation with a bit of local reporting...sad stuff.

Anyway, in honor of Clack, who I've enjoyed reading so much, and of Sarah Palin's recent "Herb Caen" gaffe, I figured I'd ask y'all if you have any local columnists that you like (and where you find them). Doesn't have to be political, just anyone you like a lot, as long as he or she is solidly local.

And I'm very much going to miss Cary Clack, and wish him well in whatever he does in the future.

8 comments:

  1. Steve Lopez and George Skelton are LA Times standbys for local, state and national political reporting. Rick Orlov of the LA Daily News is a great City Hall beat reporter of the near-extinct variety and he has been recently joined by Dakota Smith, the former editor of real-estate blog Curbed LA, who has been doing some bang-up City reporting for that periodical.

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  2. The only local columnist here worth reading is Fred LeBrun, who still usually has one column per week in the Albany (NY) Times-Union. Fred is nominally retired (he used to write quite a bit more often), but while I do not always agree with him, he is usually worth reading. His focus ranges from politics to the environment to hunting & fishing, and often the nexus among these interests/forces.

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  3. Colin McEnroe for Hartford, CT. He's a radio guy who also blogs and writes a weekly column; I like his column better than his radio show.

    Thanks,
    -V.

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  4. I live just across the Indiana state line from chicago, and read the Tribune daily. In its news coverage, it has become increasingly a wire-service clip service, but they still have some very good columnists.

    Eric Zorn writes mostley about local political and criminal justice issues and is usually a good, sometimes provocative read.

    Mary Schmich does more a "life-style" sort of thing, but I like her voice.

    Clarence Page and Steve Chapman are editorial page columnists who are consistently readable. I frequently disagree with Chapman, who's a bit to omuch of a libertarian-leaner for me.

    Greg Kot covers rock and his opinion pieces are usually pretty good. I don't know whether his concert pieces are, because I never go to concerts these days.

    The sports columnists are sports columnists...and none of them are much good...

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  5. David Sirota sometimes posts in the Denver Post, and I think he's rather excellent, he's syndicated now, though.

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  6. The best local political columnist in the Oregonian out of Portland, Oregon is David Sarasohn (http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/david_sarasohn/. He writes about both Oregon and federal politics, and as a former San Antonian myself I think he's in the league of the former SA Express-News legend Rick Casey, who I guess moved to Houston after I left SA in 1993.

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  7. 30+ years ago, the San Antonio Express was an outstanding newspaper. Served us down in the Valley, and broad swaths of Texas. They JOA'ed with the News, I guess, and I found it sorely lacking as of 15-20 years ago. Too bad.

    Horrible writers here in Detroit now. Almost nobody who's got a clue. A few gadflies, but anybody of substance has bailed, it appears. Their editorial pages are a scattered mess. The cartoons even worse. The sports pages a shell of their glorious past. Even the automotive coverage has dropped from relevancy. So sad.

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  8. Eric Black at MinnPost.

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