For a day and a half, I’ve been trying to keep up with US Senator Tim Johnson’s emergency health condition. Emotions aside, this is undoubtedly one of the more important stories in the country today as a downturn in Mr. Johnson’s health would affect the 51-49 Democrat majority vote in the Senate. For those of you not following the story, SD’s Republican Governor would appoint a [Republican] replacement in the event of Mr. Johnson leaving office.
While this story has obvious impact on the country as a whole, there is a more acute attachment for those of us living in Senator’s home state. With that in mind, it would stand to reason that the state’s largest newspaper would nail this story. But, reason is elsewhere today.
The Argus Leader article, although well written, has no time stamp. It was updated at some point today, but was never signaled with anything other than PUBLISHED: December 14th, 2006. What the hell is that? This story has swung dramatically through the course of the day. I have never heard anybody refer to any thing as being “day-sensitive.” It’s time-sensitive friends, post a time.
Next, a single article posted sometime within the last 18 hours is not enough to cover this story. The Argus sent me and tens of thousands of other readers off to find more comprehensive reporting. It’s easy to find, but I’m amazed at how badly the local guys missed the boat. A story like this would have kept me at the office around the clock pulling in related content and finding additional sources to post. I can say that from experience - I was the Online Manager there seven years ago.
Finally, block the Annabelle’s ad appearing on this page. There’s a whole concept called contextual advertising - it’s an easy way to match advertorial content with editorial content. Annabelle’s is an adult super store specializing in sex toys. This is a story about a US Senator with an emergency health condition.
I still have a lot of friends at the Argus, and I think they have a very talented staff, but, dammit, it’s nearly 2007. I was almost embarrassed at the local coverage of the story.
Ironically, I am finding topix.net to be a pretty solid resource for finding additional coverage of the story by local and national, old (television) and new media (blogs.) You may or may not remember that Gannett (Argus Leader’s parent company) is a major stakeholder in the online news aggregator.
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On a personal note, we worked with the Senator on his ‘02 campaign. You’d be hard pressed to find a nicer, more sincere individual. We wish him and his family the best.
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UPDATE: there’s now a last updated time posted on the front page lead-in. Still nothing on the article itself.
