A Mediocre Paper for Mediocre Sports teams.

Instead of getting angry at Bucky for his recent bash on the fans, blaming them for supporting losing teams. Yadda, Yadda Yadda. I looked at a bigger picture. The source. The Buffalo News. We all take anything from the News as sort of a source. Its the local paper, it should voice the opinion of the people. You know have talent. But the real truth is, its a mediocre paper, with average talent at best.

So why should we take anything from the writers to heart? Its their opinion, obviously done in a average way. If they could actually write, they would be at a bigger paper. They aren't supposed to be fans, so theres no point in sticking around. In fact being a total outsider might help in looking at something with fresh eyes. But all the sports writers, and most of the editorialists have their axes to grind, and it influences their work. Which lowers it, to a smear, and pretty much no different then blogs. Blogs wouldn't be as popular if the writing were sub par and voiced an opinion that didn't match his readers.

I was insipred by the release of the pulitzers the other day, and saw some of the winners. I go. Mmm, so how many has the Buffalo News won? So I go to their wikipedia page, which is probably pretty accurate. And since 1917, the year the Prizes started, the Buffalo News has won 3 pulitzers. 3! The Las Vegas Sun won one this year, and they are a 8 page paper. And two of the awards were for cartoons. Not even writing. The only writing award came in 1961. So in almost 50 years the Buffalo News hasn't won a writing pulitzer. James Heaney was a finalist in 1993. So in over 16 years they haven't had a finalist.

Nothing from the Buffalo News in 50 years, was worthy enough of a prize. So this got me to thinking, that this is the perfect paper to cover mediocre sports teams, in a mediocre town. Everything fits. You have mediocre writers, the ones that are good move on. Tim Graham is an example. Covering teams that are around .500. In a town that doesn't prosper in boom times nor fail miserably in bad times. Kinda always stays level.

In the end, its the fan who suffers. We go out and support mediocre teams, covered by mediocre sports guys, in a town that lets mediocre be okay. We don't go out and demand better writers at the news. We don't stage a boycott and not buy the paper. We let these writers stay employed. Patronize the advertisers who give the paper its revenue. We pick it up every day. Read it, use it for bird cage lining, and move on our daily day, talking to others what we saw in the paper.

As the paper gets thinner, and the price increases, we the fans get less and less. Sure they have blogs and the website, but really all that is breaking news coverage. Which is great, but nothing I can't get from the TV News. The fans sure have branched out and have blogs we frequent to get other opinions, that voice similar views to our own, versus the staged anger from Newspapers and Radio, but alas, many if not all have real jobs, that divert our focus from blogging and actually earning our money. So we can't create our own environment to replace the Buffalo News. As we can't create our own sports teams to be better and rely on the current management to the best they can.

So maybe Bucky is right. It is our fault. We don't demand better. We complain about it, but yet buy the newspaper, talk about the newspaper, and link to their articles. As we do with the Bills and Sabres. But at least you can get some enjoyment from those guys. When was the last time you picked up the paper read through it and went that was good? There are so many problems in this city, that reporters could hound politicians, bringing secrets out to life.

But whats the big story?

Wasting electricity on plugged in appliances.

We need better, we want better, now its time to demand better. The Buffalo News could be great, they just need the talent and character to get us a quality daily newspaper.