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Print, online different animals

It is pretty apparent to most of us at the newspaper that the online reader is often very different from the print reader.

The two readers should also understand that the news is displayed in different ways too.

We have come to use poststar.com as the conduit for breaking news whether that is a double fatal car crash or a single DWI arrest. Those stories always receive many more views than the in-depth analysis piece on your taxes.

The reality of running a news Web site in a small-town setting is that the breaking news is often lesser crime stories.

Sometimes  Web readers comment that we are sensationalizing a small story. And here is where the news is displayed differently for the two venues. The DWI arrest that shows up on the home page as latest news is often a small brief on the inside pages in the B section in the print product. It is not displayed prominently in print, but may be for a short time with the online version until another news story replaces it.

Often it is simply a matter of what type of news day we are having.

One of the great things about the print product is that weight is given to each and every story by where we play it and the size of the headline. That is not necessarily the case on the Web page where the news is a constant stream rather than ranked by importance.

- Ken Tingley

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Covering budgets always a challenge

We’ve had a lot of stories on budgets lately. It is that time of year.

It is always a challenge for our reporters to get the information that is the most important. Supervisors, budget officers, who ever is in charge of the budget can spin the numbers to say all kinds of things, so we tell our reporters to be careful.

I always advise reporters that the place to start is the total spending. What was it last year and what is it this year? That will tell you a lot.

Often reporters are told that the government body has cut spending (the amount they can control) when the reality is that when you factor in salaries, insurance, pension contributions, the spending is actually up over the year before. But they don’t tell the reporter that.

Or they will brag that the tax rate will be flat, when actually they had to use fund surplus from other years to balance the budget.

Sometimes even the people in charge don’t understand all the complexities of the budget which is an entirely different story.

Thankfully, we do have many editors that have been through the budget season before so we coach the new reporters through it and most of them become experts pretty quickly and get taxpayers the information they need.

- Ken Tingley

3 Responses to “Covering budgets always a challenge”

1. albert Says:
   November 19th, 2009 at 9:56 pm

   How much did they “cut” the energy line items?

2. Ken Tingley Says:
   November 19th, 2009 at 1:20 pm

   The revenues are projected to be down and state aid was cut so while there is still a need for a tax increase we felt they aggressively attacked the problem compared to other government bodies.

3. albert Says:
   November 19th, 2009 at 12:56 pm

   So how did Glens Falls cut spending by $200,000 AND raise taxes by 3%? Why did that deserve a “Bravo”? If they were smart, they decreased line items for energy expenditures which were down sharply in 2009 compared to 2007 and 2008…bet they didn’t cut much else.

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Plenty of bad news

Each morning during the week, the newsroom staff has a morning meeting. We post that day’s newspaper up on the wall and review the content.

When we got to last Saturday’s newspaper, there was silence. It was front page full of carnage. We had fatal accident in Queensbury leading the page, a serious bus accident on the Northway that left the driver in critical condition and the news of a third South Glens Falls student who had died after two had died in an accident earlier in the week.

It was a big day for bad news.

The South Glens Falls accident was particularly hard to cover. When young people die, it is always difficult. One of our young reporters was shooting a video of the Veteran’s Day ceremonies at Saratoga National Cemetery when he stumbled upon the crash scene on Route 32 just minutes after it happened and provided news coverage that he had not planned.

It was his first time covering a fatal accident. It is one of the most difficult news stories a reporter will cover.

The carnage continued in Wednesday’s newspaper with a plane crash that killed two and an accident on the Hudson River where a  man drowned.

It has been a horrible week and we’re hoping it is over for awhile.

- Ken Tingley

5 Responses to “Plenty of bad news”

1. nortnort Says:
   November 19th, 2009 at 3:19 pm

   Maybe “good news” stories are so common that they aren’t news any more. We are a better society than we give ourselves credit for, hence, bad news is always more interesting.

2. Ken Tingley Says:
   November 19th, 2009 at 10:42 am

   The problem with “good news” stories is that no one ever remembers them. They always suggest we should print more of them. For instance, our local centerpiece story is a “good news” story about baseball player Brendan Harris speaking to students in South Glens Falls. We do this type of story regularly as well as others, but as evidenced by the comment below, they are not remembered.

3. chris Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 9:58 pm

   How about printing more “Human Interest” stories about positive things in life?? Perhaps good news doesn’t sell as many papers as the bad news. “Sure could use a little good news today.”

4. Sceptical Mass Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 5:26 pm

   You are relentless!

5. namvet Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 12:50 pm

   More bad news!! Some people died in Iraq and Afganistan but we wouldn’t want the Post Star to waste it’s valuable resources by repoting national issues like that.

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Getting booed for a bravo

Taxpayers are so angry now that we even were getting booed for a bravo on Monday.

Several readers let us know loud and clear that they didn’t care for our bravo of the proposed Glens Falls city budget. We were impressed that officials were able to cut down the budget significantly even though it still resulted in a 3% tax increase.

Maybe all the news of the past week had something to do with it. After reading about the budget shortfall at the state level that was in the billions and the Warren County shortfall in the millions and the problems in Washington County and Saratoga County, we actually thought the Glens Falls budget might have been the bright spot of the week.

Still, several readers felt city leaders should have cut more, not approved raises for workers and made sure there was no tax increase. They thought we let them off the hook.

- Ken Tingley

3 Responses to “Getting booed for a bravo”

1. Ken Tingley Says:
   November 17th, 2009 at 3:40 pm

   Mayor Diamond told our editorial board that the dispatcher issue is something he would like to raise again, but obviously Warren County would have to be on board.

   I also agree that this is the way the budgets should be done all the time and not just in times of crisis. When you do not do that, it leads to the crisis.

2. jim Says:
   November 17th, 2009 at 1:37 pm

   You are probably correct. The problem here is why can it be done now!!. How come we cant be this agressive all the time when budgeting. Isnt that really the way it is supposed to be? Why cant we be pro-active instead of re-active all the time? It just seems so transparent.

3. pat Says:
   November 17th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

   I remember Mayor Regan proposing consolidating the city police dispatcher with warren county dispatcher. This would of saved us 250,000 dollars a year how about if this council takes the bull by the horns and does this now this would be true budget cutting.

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What readers expect

The blog conversation that began last week and continued over the weekend has been an interesting exercise for me in what readers expect.

And it is a lot. Nothing wrong with that.

It was surprising to hear from a number of people who laid a lot of the blame on this newspaper  for high taxes for not better covering the issue. Over the  years, we have often been chastised for writing “too much” about rising education and government budgets which we have found frustrating. So many of these groups have accused of of picking on them.

Many readers brought up issues and wondered why we were not chastising government boards for investments in train stations, economic breaks and the contracts of union employees. We were. We found our editorials were consistent in all these regards and that government and school board rarely listened. We were not late to the party. We did not jump on some band wagon. We have been leading the discussion on high taxes for some time.

Some even chastised us for not putting our resources into national issues since that is where so much of the waste starts. While we don’t disagree, our business is covering local news and it always will be. We cover the news in our region and we write editorials we feel can make a difference in our communities.

We have always told readers that our door is open as well. If we are missing something, if there is a key issue we have not editorialized on, we will look into it and consider it.  All anyone has to do is contact us.

I sense that the people that have commented on this blog in the past week are as frustrated as we are and want more to be done. We are one voice that will produced over 250 editorials this year. We don’t think we missed many of the big issues, but we are a small newspaper with limited resources and cannot be everywhere.

The bottom line is we care and we are always willing to take on another fight if it is for the greater good of our readers.

- Ken Tingley

8 Responses to “What readers expect”

1. nortnort Says:
   November 17th, 2009 at 12:17 pm

   Post Star left of center…..yer kiddin’!! I have always considered the P-S a right-leaning paper.

2. Ken Tingley Says:
   November 17th, 2009 at 9:20 am

   I’m always amazed when we are accused of a specific political bent. So when we editorialize about fiscal responsibility and lower taxes, which political ideology is that?
   Our over riding editorial philosophy is to always try to do the right thing for our communities.

3. Connie Says:
   November 17th, 2009 at 1:51 am

   “We have always told readers that our door is open as well. If we are missing something, if there is a key issue we have not editorialized on, we will look into it and consider it. All anyone has to do is contact us.”

   I did. Will Doolittle and I had a lengthy email discussion in regard ACORN prior to the election. The Post-Star response was to publish an article written by Wade Rathke. No admission that an investigation was warranted. But in today’s paper there is an AP “investigative” article suggesting that a “mystery” organization is promoting an anti-ObamaCare movement. And you wonder why no one takes you seriously.

4. Connie Says:
   November 17th, 2009 at 1:43 am

   “Some even chastised us for not putting our resources into national issues since that is where so much of the waste starts. While we don’t disagree, our business is covering local news and it always will be. We cover the news in our region and we write editorials we feel can make a difference in our communities.”

   Sorry, Ken. If The Post-Star surrounds itself with left-of-center articles which refuse to call into question the current administration’s obscene spending programs and you rely upon a Maury Thompson who has no opponent, then you are guilty as charged.

5. albert Says:
   November 16th, 2009 at 11:23 pm

   “we are a small newspaper with limited resources and cannot be everywhere.”

   Give me some whine with that cheese. Who else isn’t struggling? You want people to think you are special?

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Blog overflows with anger

When I wrote about my own frustrations with government spending in yesterday’s blog, it apparently tapped into anger and rage across the region.

There are many other angry people out there. Just look at the responses.

Many were angry for the same reasons I was, others wanted to vent on national politics, community apathy and even this newspaper for not doing enough, but it was obvious the root of it all was a concern that spending was continuing unchecked and a calamity of epidemic proportions could be awaiting all of us down the road if something wasn’t done now. We’re talking about tax bills that could double in two or three years and then double again, leaving all our communities in crisis.

I’ll reiterate again, this newspaper has been an advocate for taxpayers for at least the past 11 years. I can only speak to editorial policy up to when I became editor of the newspaper. It has been an issue we have been constantly concerned with whether at the state, county or school board level. We’re talking dozens and dozens of editorials and numerous columns that I have written on the issue as well.

The economic collapse has changed the landscape – not just for the short term – but for the long term and governments and schools have been slow to realize that system will no longer support the previous spending.

It doesn’t matter where schools rank or how economical a job they are doing or even how valuable the service is, the reality is that the spending has to stop or the system will collapse.

- Ken Tingley

24 Responses to “Blog overflows with anger”

1. Doug Beaty Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 4:56 am

   To Stephne,

   I have outrage at any and all institutions that waste mine and your money. That simple. Where I am focing alot of my energy is at the waste and abuse in the school district budget which makes up 70% of YOUR tax bill in Queesnbury.

   Where is your help and focus at the very poor track record of the county budget? Jump in and tackle it. And trust me, I have expressed my feeling to our county leaders too. Ask Matt Sokol where I stand. Have you spoken up yet or are you just complaining from behind the scenes?

   Thanks for your input.
   Doug Beaty

2. nortnort Says:
   November 17th, 2009 at 6:27 am

   Outrage against all school-boards is justified! However, not many people bother to vote on school-board issues, candidates or budgets. Maybe if a few budgets were defeated, locally, these elitist dominated groups would rein in the spending. They could be looking at issues like consolidation and decreasing athletic budgets!

3. Stephne Says:
   November 16th, 2009 at 6:41 am

   Mr. Beaty, where is your outrage at the out of control spending at Warren County. The sales tax will no doubt be raised as will our property taxes, rumored around 20%.

   Seems as though you only have an axe to grind with the school district.

4. Connie Says:
   November 16th, 2009 at 1:17 am

   If you want credibility, Ken, then find a way to speak out against national issues that will cause the middle class in our area more financial pain. You cannot continue to publish AP/McClatchy/LA Times/Newsday, etc. articles that are all left-leaning and expect us to respect your views on local issues. By the way, why did the paper deliberately omit voter info on the prisoners being allowed to work for non-profits?

5. Kyle York Says:
   November 15th, 2009 at 9:44 pm

   namvet-

   Extremely well said by one who understands the cost of war. And no, it isn’t the “1 million dollars per soldier per year” tossed around by all the Sunday papers. No Obama promise meant more to me than bringing our troops back from the Hell we’ve never understood and our leaders never studied. We have some small hope in the battle-tested courage and wisdom of Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, the honor and integrity of US Foreign Service Officer Matthew P. Hoh.

   Let the partisan bickering drone on until it’s a full-fledged circus. But let not one more young patriot die for want of political will.

   Bless ‘em all.

   -Kyle York

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Even editorial board gets frustrated

It was the final editorial board meeting for our citizen representative Robert Sellar the other day as his four-month term was about to expire. We had plenty to talk about.

Between APA restrictions, Judge Hall’s sentencing in the cancer faker case and a slew of tax issues from Queensbury’s three-year deal of 3% raises to its supervisors, to the Warren County Sheriff’s refusal to find ways to cut from his budget and state legislature’s inaction to address the state’s bleak finances, there was anger and frustration in the room.

We talked about how we could articulate our concerns over what we believe could be a calamity for all taxpayers if government spending continues unchecked.

We were incredulous that the Queensbury Board of Education could approve by a 9-0 margin 3% increases for the supervisors with retirement contributions continuing to escalate and state aid in peril, not only for next year but this year too.

We were amazed that the sherriff and unions in Warren County continue to say they can do nothing to help save other department programs and jobs by simply making tough decisions.

And we were livid that the state legislature will not even try to find budget cuts somewhere, anywhere in the budget.

We spend most of the meeting wondering how we can motivate the citizenry, how we can call them to action, because our leaders continue to fail us left and right.

- Ken Tingley

31 Responses to “Even editorial board gets frustrated”

1. albe71 Says:
   November 13th, 2009 at 8:48 pm

   Namvet I have never been to the circle on Sundays, although I have heard about the meetings. I do not believe that there will be much left of our old and good America by next election. Especially at the speed that it being taken from us in the last nine months. The only alternative I can see would be for the people to take to the streets in peaceful protest. So, please tell me what your organization that is at the circle on Sunday afternoon at 2:00 is called. Why you are there and what are you pushing for?

   And Don Donofrio, I do not think that people are stupid, just poorly informed. Karl Marx said that, ” religion is the opiate of the people”. Well that has changed. These days television is the opiate of the people. The people only know what they are told. And they are being told that all is O.K. “Live it up folks”, the TV says. “Get those credit cards out and go buy some more foreign made stuff”. And, “let the government take care of you. It does such a great job”. The people base their decisions on what they are told on TV. And, hence, they shout at you if you try to tell them what’s really happening. “Go away and leave me alone” they shout. “I’ve got enough problems. I don’t want to hear it”. Or, “I saw on TV that everything is fine”…. Television IS the opiate of the people. And it is being used as a very powerful tool.

2. nortnort Says:
   November 13th, 2009 at 3:40 pm

   Skep – as usual you missed my point. Go read it again!

3. Sceptical Mass Says:
   November 13th, 2009 at 11:53 am

   Betrayal? Crackpots? Pretty cynical, Nort, even for you. I still wonder what the voter breakdown on health care is in this area, percentage wise that is. If, by chance, the majority of his electorate are opposed to the house bill, what’s he supposed to do? Toe the party line anyway? Ignore the will of the voters? Act like a lemming and run off the cliff with Pelosi’s crew?

4. Ken Tingley Says:
   November 13th, 2009 at 9:58 am

   Again, I am surprised about the comment on the Warren County Sheriff since we have repeatedly urged the board of supervisors to look closely at cutting the jail and the sheriff’s department. We also railed against the huge pay increases that were give to the PBA last December, warning it would come back to haunt the supervisors. And it has.

5. namvet Says:
   November 13th, 2009 at 9:30 am

   Albe71, are you a part of that “tea party” group that meets every Sun at 2 at the circle in Glens Falls? The Post Star talks about the over spending like that is the solution, when they should be talking about the Contstitutional right of the politicians for creating the spending in the first place. When ever is the Post Star going to have the ba_ _ s
   to report the Federal Reserve is a private bank and according to the government’s Grace Commission, evey nickle paid by way of a 1040 goes to the owners of that bank as payment for the interest on the national debt which they own? I would think trillions of dollars paid to individuals which would never happen if Congress took that Constitutional responsibility back would be considered an over spending issue far more important than the ones the Post Star has you considering.

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Taxpayers should pay attention

Our education reporter Omar Aquije provided an in-depth look at the the retirement system for schools and how it is funded in Sunday’s newspaper.

It is a must read for any taxpayer. Because of the stock market declines, the amount of money it will take to fund the retirement system is going to grow by leaps and bounds over the next few years and there does not appear to be any way to slow it down without a complete overhaul of the system which is highly unlikely.

Those escalating expenses to go along with the increased increases to insurance contributions means that administrators will be find it almost impossible to submit budgets that do not have big tax increases.

Just Monday night, Queensbury announced that it had reached a deal to give all its administrators three percent raises (at a time when few people are getting any raises) for each of the next three years. It came on the heels of Sunday’s story about the future budget problems and seemed to disregard any concern about the crushing blow that this will add to the taxpayer burden in the next few years.

And Queensbury is not alone here.

If you pay school taxes, you should be concerned. Without major cuts to the budgets, taxes may double or triple in five years. I recommend  Sunday’s story to your attention.

- Ken Tingley

10 Responses to “Taxpayers should pay attention”

1. Ken Tingley Says:
   November 12th, 2009 at 2:03 pm

   The absolute fact is that the those raises will easily cover any increases in their health care costs and while Queensbury did not create the problems with the increased payments to the retirement system, they are real and will cost the schools and ultimate the taxpayers vast sums. Considering those costs coming down the road and the possibility of reduced funding from the state, I find those 3% raises to be a complete disregard for taxpayers. There is no other way to look at it.

2. Tired_of_Bias Says:
   November 12th, 2009 at 1:47 pm

   Ken – OK, how about using the local per pupil averages according to the link in Brian’s post? Queensbury $10,819, Glens Falls $14,020, Hudson Falls $12,872, Lake George $15,602, South Glens Falls $12,095. These schools are in the same immediate area. Using per pupil rates for Glens Falls (and they don’t have the expense of transporting the vast majority of students to/from school) Qby would have to boost their budget over $12 million.

   Also, you have posted another article to your blog that again mentions the Qby admin contract 3% raise, but again you fail to mention the fact that the admin has agreed to pay higher health insurance costs. The problems with the retirement system weren’t created by Qby, and to be included on Monday’s agenda the agreement between the district and admin group must have been reached prior to the article about the retirement system. The fact that Qby eliminated 26 positions last year to keep their budget level should give some indication that they don’t have total disregard for the taxpayers.

3. nonshooby Says:
   November 12th, 2009 at 12:21 pm

   Ken, Queenbury spends less per pupil than any other area district as well yet their results are as good if not better than all area districts.

4. Ken Tingley Says:
   November 12th, 2009 at 11:10 am

   I think you have to be very careful about per pupil averages when you consisder that parts of New York State such as Long Island and Westchester County have taxpayers who make much more money and must pay teachers and administrators much more because of the high cost of living in those areas. You cannot make a simple comparison with those numbers.

5. Sceptical Mass Says:
   November 12th, 2009 at 9:40 am

   Bulls-eye, Brian! Now research their graduation rate, college placement rate, test score rate and come to the conclusion, quickly, that big bucks doesn’t mean a quality education. How have they accomplished all this? Obviously they are doing something very right.

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Covering health care reform

Things moved quickly over the weekend as the House of Representatives passed the health care reform bill Saturday.

The timing was perfect if you happen to sell a newspaper. Newspapers get few breaks in the 24-hour news cycle these days, but the passage of the bill was fresh news in Sunday’s newspaper. Our copy desk did a great job of planning for the scenario and getting a story in the paper on deadline while also adding a paragraph on how Glens Falls Congressman Scott Murphy voted (against).

Our Sunday staff did a nice job following up with an analysis piece from The Associated Press that broke down the health care bill into bite-sized pieces so we could all figure out what this historic legislation would mean to us on a personal level.

It also had a break down of the Senate bill.

We will be covering Scott Murphy’s press conference in Saratoga Springs today to get a more detailed look at his reasons for voting against the health care plan.

- Ken Tingley

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Web site features returning

As with any significant change, it has been a bumpy ride with the new design on poststar.com.

We’re happy to report that many of the features that our readers like have gradually been put back into the mix.

Just today, we were able to put back the home page feature that promoted our most recent blog updates.

A couple weeks ago, we were able to get our columnists back on the home page.

We’ve still got a pretty long list of fixes so hang in there, we are working on it.

- Ken Tingley

2 Responses to “Web site features returning”

1. Pennie Champagne Says:
   November 7th, 2009 at 9:54 am

   Glad some things are straightening out. I am having trouble with broken links to sections and/or articles. Also, I miss the feature of being able to click on arrow to go from article to article in a category.

2. jean Says:
   November 7th, 2009 at 7:30 am

   the new format of the paper is awful..i no longer enjoy even looking @it!!!we cancelled the print verson because that became such a waste…now the online is awful….sometimes change is not always the best…get your act together befor u lose more readers!!!

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