Bad local journalism

I don't pay as much attention to the local paper as I once did, but when I do take the trouble to read it, it serves as a reminder on how pathetically inept and amateurish it can be.

In today's example we have a "scene setter" for the big vote today.

Here's the first four grafs:

Candidates running for local offices spent the last hours before Election Day putting out signs, campaigning and encouraging everyone to get out and vote.

The message might be getting through. Turnout for early voting this year was significantly ahead of the last non-presidential election in 2002.

By the time early voting wrapped up at 7 p.m. Friday, 24,726 voters had cast early ballots, compared to the 17,986 early voters in 2002, according to the County Clerk’s elections division.

Joe King, Republican candidate for county judge, said he was happy about the increase in early voters, Henry Bonilla is expected to return to Washington.

The "lede" is standard fare. And boring. But you have to expect that sometimes. But look at the 4th graf. What the hell is Henry Bonilla doing there? He's a candidate in South Texas, not Brazoria County. The lede spoke of "local candidates." Plus, the 4th sentence is ungrammatical.

Let's move on to the 5th graf:

Chet Edwards, a Democrat holding on in increasingly Republican East Texas, was expected to win over newcomer Van Taylor. Republican incumbents John Carter in the 31st District, which includes Killeen and Temple, and Ron Paul, whose 14th District encompasses Galveston, most of Brazoria County and the northern Gulf Coast, had to fight harder than they expected against their Democratic opponents, Mary Beth Harrell — whose two sons have served in Iraq — and cattleman Shane Sklar.

What's wrong? Chet Edwards' district is not in East Texas. It's in Central Texas, stretching from the southern suburbs of Fort Worth down south past Waco.

John Carter is a congressman whose district also is in Central Texas. Then they throw in the incumbent congressman from our district, almost like an after thought. The whole graf is convoluted. Is Carter running against Harrell or Sklar?

Here's the 2nd sentence in the next graf:

But even a Democratic gain of one seat in Texas could be costly to Republicans nationally, which is why the fight in DeLay’s old district has been costly and bitter.

Delay? Traditionally, you include a person's first name upon first reference in a news story. It's "Tom." Mr. Delay's district isn't his "old" district; it's his former district. (That's a little picky on my part, but true nonetheless.)

After some more background on the 22nd District race, the story jumps back to Chet Edwards and Henry Bonilla. For no apparent reason. And there's nothing else about the local congressional race. Or the races for the local county commissioners court, judgeships, etc. And the one true local candidate they include in the story (other than US Rep. Ron Paul) has nothing else to say after the story's 4th graf noted he was happy with the early voting turnout.

In short, this is a story unfit for a junior high school newspaper.

How does this happen?

For any number of reasons, but the bottom line is this: someone's asleep at the wheel down at the Clute paper. The reporter, the editors, the publisher. All of 'em. They all oughta be fired.

The thing of it is, I doubt no one will call or write them about it and demand some answers. And since they won't hear any complaints, they won't really take to heart how bad they are, at least with this particular story, which most people would say is rather important, since it's about an allegedly all-important mid-term election.

I wonder if Southern Newspapers, which owns the Clute paper, even bothers to read how bad their product really is today. What do you think?