Why the Saratogian frustrates me

I have said in the past that The Saratogian is amateurish, and a couple of recent news items this week support my assertion. 

Yesterday's edition has a story about the sentencing of local builder James McLagan to Grand Larceny charges.  A look at the article, which has the basic facts of the case including quotes from District Attorney James A. Murphy III, might not make you think there was much wrong with the coverage.  If, however, you read the Times Union's article about the case, you will see a much more professional product.  The T-U's coverage has quotes strongly criticizing the local justice system from well known horse trainer H. James Bond, who was one of McLagan's victims and was in the courtroom at the time of the sentencing.  This added perspective gives an indication that T-U reporter Dennis Yusko was at the court at the time of the sentencing.  The Saratogian's version does not include any reaction from Bond, and only has quotes from D.A. Murphy almost as if the information was read off of a District Attorney's office press release rather than gathered from firsthand reporting from the courthouse.  I realize the Saratogian is a much smaller newspaper with budget problems, but this was a big local story and I don't think it's asking too much to get better coverage and top notch reporting. 

The other story I feel the Saratogian missed the boat, completely in this case, was Rachel Alexandra's arrival at Saratoga's Oklahoma track after her record setting win in Saturday's Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park.  I commented on this blog that the coverage and excitement around her arrival was more or less silly, but fun nonetheless.  It was still big news in the horse racing world, and it happened right here in our backyard. I saw T-U photographer Skip Dickstein and others snapping pictures away, and the T-U had an article the next day.   Monday's edition of the Saratogian had nothing about it.  Again this is in their backyard.  If The Saratogian is supposed to have a local focus, then it should have had something about this event in there.  I said before that their sports coverage is good but they missed this one and I was disappointed. 

These are not isolated examples.  In addition to simply missing local stories, their reporting consistently has errors in it - almost to the point where I expect the errors and just shrug my shoulders when I see them.  I recognize that as a smaller paper their resources are limited, but professionalism and accuracy are two qualities that should not be dependent on the size of your budget.

Comments

[Jack Salmon]

Hey, did you notice the Times Union also included in depth coverage of the special prosecutor who handled the Bond case. It was not the Saratoga County Das Office, but the New york Prosecutor's Training Institute because of some comflict with th DA had. The Saratogian reported on the conflict in a previous article that the Times Union blew off. Apparently, one of the lawyers in the DA's office had represented one of the victims against McLagan, which is why it went to another DA office. So, if you read that Bond was unhappy about the result, then you should have also read that it was not the Saratoga DA. Make sure you read everything, before drawing conclusions about anything.

[Dan]

I am not sure what your point is here, but thanks for commenting anyway.