I look forward to year-end retrospectives like “Photos of the Year 2024,” as The Herald published on Dec. 28, but was insulted when the caption under a photo of a procession honoring the late State Parrol Trooper David Gadd featured Titania ThunderLily at a pagan event in Index.
In that same Local section, a letter from the editor bemoaned this paper’s new story quotas for journalists. The writer pined for Herald journalists to have “ample resources” to do their job. Not going to happen.
It’s not news that Herald owners decimated the editorial staff, and I’m sadly weary of the steady stream of letters to the editor calling for reporters to earn livable wages so they can afford to live in or near the communities they cover. Again, not going to happen.
I trust that the Herald manager or editor who missed the caption beneath Trooper Gadd’s procession will apologize in these pages to his wife, daughter, father Trooper David Gadd, mother, and sister (who is a trooper in Texas).
Finally, I cut my undergraduate teeth 47 years in Illinois reading journalism giants like Ben Bagdikian, David Halberstam and Mike Royko. After watching the way that Carpenter Media Group has treated its shrinking stable of low-wage employees at a Herald I used to enjoy, Ben, David and Mike would likely share my disappointment (perhaps more importantly, disgust) with the state of local journalism today.
Eric Steiner
Freeland
Editor’s note: The Herald apologizes for the production error
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