Since there is now only one edition published, is it possible that the paper can now have some investigative reporting instead of just regurgitating what is said at local meetings or accepting the "official reports" to summarize?

Don't count on it.

LMAO!!! I was gonna say " Good Luck With That!"

What would they investigate? Bums in the library? Incest in West Virginia?

Do you work for the HM because you sound like an employee. Why don't they investigate why a kiddie porn elected official has not been charged yet? Why don't they follow up on the Open/Closed meeting policies? Why don't they find out what it would cost and why the County Commish are not on TV yet? They should know what it cost since they just started a channel themselves? Why don't they follow up on hundreds of kids with disabilities do no get an education in Washington County but the BOE states thay have a surplus so they take millions from people with disabilities and give to kids with talent downtown? Why don't they make a list of things that could save City residents money because of the waste in City Hall? Same question for the County? Why don't they investigate why agencies have mission statements and goals but fail each and every year. Instead of ending these programs their budgets double. Why don't they look into what the hell is taking the track at north high to be completed?

Instead of filling the paper with silly sh*t like Mail call could we have decent articles. Maybe they could show up when invited to do postive stories of positive things going on in the community.

The only story I have ever seen them stay on top of was the damn lightbulb story.

I can garuntee that heather does NOT work for the HM

guess she forgot to add a " insert sarcasm here" note for the folks who don't know our heather

LOL You wouldn`t want Heather to be a reporter. They could not print her reports.

hagon, Why don`t you just go to the CC and MC meetings and ask those questions. Your starting to sound like mail-call.

You must not watch the MC meeting on television. Everyone that comes in to ask questions, give idea are treated like sh*t and shown the door. I sure hope we vote almost all of the members out of office.

They can't do all that, it would cost to much and someone might get the idea that they are running a real newspaper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigative_journalism

I know wikipedia isn't a reliable source but I thought this interesting:

"The Investigation:
The investigation will often require an extensive number of interviews and travel; other instances might call for the reporter to make use of activities such as surveillance techniques, analysis of documents, investigations of the performance of any kind of equipment involved in an accident, patent medicine, scientific analysis, social and legal issues, and the like.

Investigative journalism requires the scrutiny of details, fact-finding, and physical effort. An investigative journalist must have an analytical and incisive mind with strong self-motivation to carry on when all doors are closed, when facts are being covered up or falsified and so on."


No, definitely not going to happen here.

Yeh, that's definitely to much to ask.

Slight hijack - I don't automatically discount wikipedia articles. A lot of the stuff on there is well cited, so as long as you check out the wiki article's sources, wiki can be a great way for topics to be summarized concisely.

This may not be the right place for this but....

How do I search the HM online addition? Is the "nethound" the only way? It does not, to me appear to be all that user friendly.

Thank you for your guidance.

You can go to the home page and look under the "news" tab at the top of the page. I think the third choice under the tab is "archives." Try that.

You are very kind, that worked.

Thank you.

Cheers.

And you are very welcome.

Don't count on it. Here is a quote from PaperPusher from the following thread when I questioned the Herald's sparse coverage of a house fire a few weeks ago....
http://www.herald-mail.com/forums/index.ph...15&start=15

Sometimes all it would take is maybe some e-mails and/or calls from the "reporter" to people involved to follow-up on various issues. Some time should be spent on that. Certain issues just beg for follow-up, but don't get it.

It would be too much like work and maybe make them into a real newspaper. I love how in the other thread PaperPusher wnats to knwo the dirty little secrets yet when they have real dirt on our city officials they won't or can't cover it becaue they don't know what the heck to do with a real story.

Hire some free lance reporters or an investigator or two and let them research and dig up the dirt and have one person put it all together for a story. Do something at least.

Speaking of investigative reporting, while I am sure some of these were reported on (perhaps in the police log, go figure) I don't recall seeing all of them, at least not in depth. Most people when they see fire and rescue apparatus screaming to an incident tend to wonder just what the heck is going on. Heck these folks even have pictures.

http://www.1strespondernews.com/webpages/n...99-70f1d4a385dc

http://www.1strespondernews.com/webpages/n...d3-44e2cebc52a6

http://www.1strespondernews.com/webpages/n...42-d0ee12d3ce90

http://www.1strespondernews.com/webpages/n...e8-3c376803c091

http://www.1strespondernews.com/webpages/n...37-f28029f73d6f

http://www.1strespondernews.com/webpages/n...5c-0240f5b047e6

Wow! Thanks, Smokechaser!

Now, that's reporting!

Thanks Checks, and might I say, it wasn't that difficult either. Maybe I could teach a class on investigative reporting to th HM, or at least get paid for doing a good reporting job.

So I guess this was the HM's attempt to cover breaking news....

Fire call shuts down city block in downtown Hagerstown today
http://www.herald-mail.com/?cmd=displaysto...amp;format=html

:shrugs: I dunno these kind of calls happen everyday, hardly newsworthy. I guess since it tied up traffic downtown, I guess they thought it was important to print.

Seems like people complain when it's not covered and those same people complain when it is covered.

Is there no pleasing?

Nope guess not. My point was, given what the HM has missed or reported little on vs. reporting on relatively minor calls such as this, where is the balance? Excuse me for just trying to find a happy medium.

And then there are those who just complain. Period.

exactly....

HM has been doing well on the coverage of the river rescue incidents, I will give them credit for those.