West U paper is hailed

We take a moment now to note that The Houston Press, the alternative weekly newspaper of the nation's fourth largest city, has bestowed its "Best Community Newspaper" award on The West University Examiner in its annual "Best Of" issue.

We're way too sophisticated to place too much stock in such awards. After all, The Press a year or two ago named the Clute newspaper the best small paper, or community paper, or whatever the hell they called it -- a decision they obviously pulled out of their arse (based on our almost daily perusal of said daily.)

Be that as it may, we feel strongly that The Press took a little more care and attention this year in selecting the best community newspaper.

We made note awhile back (too lazy to look it up; sorry) that the West U paper scoops the big bad Chron on occassion, a post that elicited an unhappy comment from Chron City Hall reporter Matt Stiles (who's a darn good reporter, by the way), so it's no suprirse to us that The Houston Press has taken note of the lil paper's newsgathering accomplishments.

With the daily newspaper industry on the economic ropes, smaller, community-oriented newspapers may very well be the future of journalism.

We guess.