Express & Star - Who Writes This Crap?

[proactive]

How is this in the town centre?

Rubbish picture.

Appalling grammar, and in places a new language appears to have been invented.

If you can't do better than that then why bother?

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2015/05/01/stafford-town-centre-roadworks-expected-to-end/

 

[Gramaisc]

I'm always intrigued by the term "temporary roadworks" - as if there is a possibility of some of them really becoming permanent.

BT used that same picture to illustrate an article about works on London's Hammersmith fly-over in September, 2013 - http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/motoring/motoring-news/repair-work-to-hit-key-road-route-11363836168466 .

 

[Withnail]

Dripping taps, dirty wellies, men at work.

Probably a finite number of monkeys, most likely two part-time/casual/intern monkeys. Probably have to 'hot desk' the typewriter.

The Complete Works of Shakespeare are likely to experience considerable delays.

 

[Gramaisc]

Then just don't put a picture in......

..etc..

 

[John Marwood]

You'll miss it when it shuts down

 

[Gramaisc]

Will not printing a random picture of somebody else's roadworks and not calling them "central", when they're about as non-central as they could be whilst still being "town roadworks", really cause it to shut down?

 

[John Marwood]

Will not printing a random picture of somebody else's roadworks and not calling them "central", when they're about as non-central as they could be whilst still being "town roadworks", really cause it to shut down?

Get over it sonny

The E & S is in trouble - nobody wants to advertise with it, nobody wants to buy it

It's owner lives in Monte Carlo

It prints in Telford

Its biggest asset is a multi storey car park

 

[Gramaisc]

The E & S is in trouble - nobody wants to advertise with it, nobody wants to buy it

Why would that be?

 

[John Marwood]

Why would that be?

AOL

It's the future

 

[PPPPPP]

Who cares about gerbilism. The real worry here is that these permanently temporary roadworks might ultimately have a bad effect on the profit of County Showground company that hires out the venue.

 

[Gramaisc]

Who cares about gerbilism. The real worry here is that these permanently temporary roadworks might ultimately have a bad effect on the profit of County Showground company that hires out the venue.

Whenever attending a Showground event, I tend to go up Sandon Road and then along Within Lane to enter the Showground from the East, thus avoiding most of any consequent queueage.

 

[John Marwood]

Whenever attending a Showground event, I tend to go up Sandon Road and then along Within Lane to enter the Showground from the East, thus avoiding most of any consequent queueage.

47 people taken note

 

[Norman D Landing.]

This really is absolute drivel. CSE English. Leaving aside clumsy syntax, lack of puntuation and typo's, what is the story?

 

[flossietoo]

Who writes it?

Badly-paid people in Cannock. Occasionally Wolverhampton if it is perceived as a 'big' story.

Some of the reporters have never visited Stafford and have only the haziest idea what it is like. They are under pressure to churn out copy and have little time to research.

One or two are different. For a while, Stafford had its own reporter, the excellent Shaun Lintern. He took his skills to the Nursing Times.

The E&S doesn't have a photographer based in Stafford now, either. That's why they struggle for pictures.

Sorry when it's gone? It pretty much has.

 

[Withnail]

... the excellent Shaun Lintern.

Would Mr @skwalker1964 agree with this epithet?

The printed press is in its death throes, many of its organs have already packed up. We won't miss it when it's gone, but we should.

Long live the Eye!

 

[Norman D Landing.]

I don't think levels of pay can be used as an excuse for inept work. Plenty of folk earn the minimum wage or just above and are prepared to put a shift in.

 

[John Marwood]

I don't think levels of pay can be used as an excuse for inept work. Plenty of folk earn the minimum wage or just above and are prepared to put a shift in.

It's a daily publication covering a patch from Stafford to Kidderminster, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell, Birmingham, with a website that requires constant updating .

It eats 'stories' or press release rewrites as they might be better known , using an inexperienced staff approx one fifth of that 15 years ago

There is no mystery here

It's like many things that went digital - there is no realistic business model

Instead we rely on selected ' news' from Plod , gossip from Facebook and randomness from this forum.

Any loss of a publication is a loss of democracy. Whatever that is

 

[Norman D Landing.]

I'm not convinced that the decline of the press is threat to democracy - at least no more than the closing/restructuring of public libraries.
Some digital and analogue technologies seem to co exist, at least for the foreseeable.
No shortage of Acoustic guitars? Kindles and bookshops, Vinyl back in vogue (unconvinced of this).
Printed media does seem to have had it. Like photography I fear there is no way back.
Maybe poor Hackage is a symptom.
Rehashed PR statements of 150 words cascaded from agencies.

 

[flossietoo]

I don't think levels of pay can be used as an excuse for inept work. Plenty of folk earn the minimum wage or just above and are prepared to put a shift in.

In fairness, I wasn't suggesting that low pay is an excuse for inept work, nor that bad quality is necessarily the result of low pay.

The thread was asking who writes it. I was answering the question.

Personally, I'd never make excuses for the Express & Star at least in as far as it fails to serve the town of Stafford.

The paper does a decent job in Wolverhampton and Cannock. Sister paper Shropshire Star likewise in its area. In Stafford, though, they've just seen/imagined an opportunity to grab some advertising revenue without investing in the product.

 

[John Marwood]

Perhaps it could go upmarket ...