Is this center stage?

If you didn't know already — and who couldn't know after Oct. 27 — Slaughter Pen was "going center stage" Friday. For those who don't know, Slaughter Pen is a Bentonville bike park, so clearly it won't be on a stage. But the Daily Record felt the need to "hammer home" (to use an overused cliche of my own) the metaphor on Saturday's front page. This time, however, it was the Bike Jam, not Slaughter Pen itself, that the paper said "Takes Center Stage." (Note: The change in punctuation is due to changes in style imposed after the merger.) So if Slaughter Pen and its Bike Jam have captured the center of the stage, one has to wonder if there are indeed enough supports to keep the stage from collapsing.

Gone too far?

The front page story of Saturday's Daily Record and Morning News was about Circuit Judge Jay Finch's run from law enforcement when he failed to stop for a pickup truck with a blue light and a driver not wearing a uniform. Briefly noted in the article, but not expounded upon in any way, was the small matter that the law requires constables to be in uniform to effect a traffic stop. Tracy Neal does include this gem in his story that is far too much about Finch and not nearly enough about Constable Craig Milligan. Excerpts are from the Daily Record.

Greatest hits

I was up late Thursday night wondering when we'd see our first post-merger Crystal Bridges story in the Daily Record. They were so prevalent beforehand, and it would be a shame if the people of Benton County didn't know ever detail about each brick and each stone, without a full feature on the nails that will be used to hold the paintings and a profile of the janitor who will be keeping the museum sparkling. Well there it was this morning, in the only place a Crystal Bridges story ever appears, on the top of page one with a headline (Art Outside the Binding of Books) almost as big as the story. My favorite part is how Crystal Bridges is no longer included in the headline. It has a place of honor above the headline, announcing that you are about to read (or avoid) yet another story about this overrated museum.
The Morning News, meanwhile, also ran the story, using the Daily Record's subhead as its headline (Exhibit Features Stars of Children's Illustrations) and put it on the more appropriate page seven.
I would post a link to the story, but the Northwest Arkansas Newspaper Web site is apparently also tired of so many Crystal Bridges stories and refused to show it.

What won't get said

Once again, we have an expansion of programs at the Rogers Little Theater. It's funded by Cox and Wal-Mart. That could never be a bad thing, right? This is my favorite part: "Theater officials wanted to expand children’s theater o(ff)erings to include afternoon classes, musical theater classes for teens and to create new performance opportunities for the students."
So what is my problem with this? I'll tell you that if you can tell me where in that sentence it says the theater will be open more nights. Let's face it, this second-rate theater draws a third-rate crowd.

O • the deep end

I've long wondered just why the Democrat Gazette was putting in so much work on the nwanews.com site. They went to a paid site, and there were problems. There were updates and more problems. Now the merger. Did you accept anything less?
Here is an actual copy-and-paste passage from the Web site. It doesn't matter how the writing is or what the story is about. Just look at the formatting and try to figure out what words you're not allowed to use if you want your story to look right on the page.

    However, the 2D barcode technology has not taken o

• as quickly in the United States, even among large retailers. 

    That was the message from Tevian Rose, national account strategist with InnoMark Communications, and Stephen Shannon, InnoMark chief marketing o

• cer and president of enterprise operations. They spoke to about 20Wal-Mart suppliers and others in a lunch seminar Wednesday at the DoubleTree in Bentonville. 

Quick thoughts

The increased amount of ad space must be due to both papers trying to accommodate each other's advertisers. People who paid for two ads should get two ads, right? So now, since there's only one paper, the ads get bigger or run twice or something. If they're not, I'd love to know.
But I wonder, once the advertising levels settle down, what they're going to do to fill the empty space. I guess you can never have enough Crystal Bridges stories.

An apology

I must, sadly, admit that I was wrong about the newspaper merger. I doubted the reduction in staff and consolidation of media agencies would lead to increased local coverage. Clearly, my prediction was off the mark. Anyone who saw the local story on peanut butter cookies must certainly feel more connected to the community. I mean, nothing says home like cookies, right?
And how can anyone decry the local comics. You didn't find them? No, not on the opinion page; there's nothing local there. It's near the back page.
Again, I did not realize there would be so many more local stories, and I apologize for besmirching the papers' good names. Or is that the paper's good names. Or good name. I still get confused over that.