Courant Criticisms

The question of the week is to take a look at the Hartford Courant, the one of the true mainstay major newspaper of the CT region. Since I don't read the print edition (not sure it's worth the money nowadays), I'll limit my concerns to the online edition.

I think the one thing that the Courant does a good job with is their bloggers (no, really!). Finding those blogs, however, is a different story. The blogger section of the front page is buried past the screen cut, forcing a user to scroll down even to discover the roll of Courant bloggers, past a few news boxes, a rather uninspired photo section and the weather. Even here, it only lists the past few posts from across the paper. Prior to the recent website redesign, the Courant had a drop down menu for all their bloggers as a quick hit spot to get to the writer you wanted to read. Now, you're forced to wade through the different sections of the paper to get to the blog you want to read. That aside, once you get to the blogs, most are rather robust with a good selection of regionally important material. I tend to skew to Entertainment related news (music, movies and TV), so let's (briefly) look at the two major entertainment blogs the Courant offers.

I routinely read Eric Danton's Sound Check, which, for local music news, is as good as it gets. Danton wisely focuses on the region's music scene as opposed to cover national news. I frequently notice him out at concerts in Hartford, Northampton and the like and his blog reflects it. Updated frequently with notable information, it's a solid read for Hartford music fans who actually want to engage with interesting, worthwhile tunes.

Roger Catlin's TV Eye is generally pretty good as well. While it focuses more on actual television shows, which leans away from local coverage, Catlin's insights and opinions generally enrich a viewing experience. While I'm not a regular reader, I do actively seek it out fairly often.

The remaining bloggers (Colin McEnroe, the Sports crew) are all solid. For the most part, the Courant's beat blog on Huskies basketball is as good of coverage as one can find for all your UConn basketball needs. The bloggers all cover the local scene with a great deal more efficiency than the actual Courant, which was leading me to consider what the coverage would look like if every reporter was blogging rather than writing columns.

It would obviously lead to the demise of the print edition as the blogs just wouldn't translate into a printed page. However, it'd give the readers of the online Courant up-to-date bursts of information from the writers that they have come to know and trust. Equally so, the reporters wouldn't have to strictly focus on a single story. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but writing a blog offers a great deal more of freedom and speed. The problem with the blogs are that they allow for a great deal of self-publishing. That said, adjust the editors to focus more heavily on the blogs and go online exclusively. You'll have adjusted the paper for the coming generation and would have beat most other regional papers to the punch. While it'd be sad to see the Courant printed edition go away, the paper does a good job with their bloggers, I'd like to see more focus swing in that direction.