The Saginaw News

The Saginaw News is the paper of my hometown.  While it keeps Michigan (and Saginaw in particular) residents abreast of what's going on, I've put together a list of ways in which it could improve.

1. It has a complete lack of focus on global -- or even national -- events, insulating residents from the rest of the world. In the news today (Monday, 11 Feb), for example, the only nonlocal news coverage I found included 3 articles on sports in the corner of the sports page and a few articles on travel -- which tend to focus on travel for Michiganders. The paper seems to stress the fact that its readers are expected to be Michiganders, pushing away any chance at the paper appealing to anyone outside the area.
2. In the cases in which the paper looks beyond Michigan (and even within Michigan), it is rather conservative. Its opinions page is peppered with support for Bush, and its news articles never cover problems faced by the current [Bush] administration. The problem here is not that the paper fails to espouse my (admittedly more liberal) beliefs; it's that the paper is so far to the right that they never publish problems with conservative politics.
   
3. It is overtly religious. Spewing "Merry Christmas" across the top of the front page on December 25th should make my point. While this is probably because the readers in the area tend to be Christian, behavior like this alienates the Jewish and Muslim residents of Michigan.

Some might argue that the Saginaw News is intended to provide local news: if readers want to read national or international news, they can read the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. This is true, but most readers -- especially those who subscribe to the Saginaw News, those in Michigan's struggling economy -- have neither the time nor extra money to devote to multiple newspapers. These are also exactly the people who deserve coverage of the global economy the most, given that Michigan's economic troubles are largely due to both national and international changes in the economic landscape (I won't argue that this paper helped to insulate the state's residents from appropriate awareness of global trends, but I could imagine a reasonable essay on this topic). While I can respect the paper's right to publish anything it wants, my main concern lies in how the paper can best fulfill its journalism mandate: inform readers about news and events that will best inform the readers of (and engage them about) the world around them.