Another example of missing the local angle
We've argued previously that we think the Chronicle needs to improve its local coverage significantly, and that it needs to exercise much better judgment about the wire copy that it runs (and edits). That's because the newspaper is never going to have the resources to cover national or international news like major news organizations (say, AP or Reuters) and significant newspapers (like the New York Times) -- nor should it, with so much wire copy available. If savvy editors pull the best national and international stories from various news services and supplement stories that have a local angle, that frees resources to improve local coverage.
Unfortunately, the Chronicle seems to lack such savvy editors. The latest illustration is a New York Times news service story that the Chronicle chopped and ran yesterday, Libya using oil to entice U.S. executives. The full version, authored by Jad Mouawad, also ran in the New York Times yesterday. The Times version (Libya tempts executives with big oil reserves) contains approximately 1,810 words in 43 paragraphs. The Chron's chop job, on the other hand, contains approximately 210 words in 8 paragraphs. Important details are, as one might expect, missing from the Chron version.
The re-opening of Libya to American oil companies is an important story locally, since Houston remains the energy capital of the world. For that matter, all four of the American companies (Marathon, Amerada Hess, ConocoPhillips, and Oxy) originally granted permission by the Bush Administration to negotiate their return to Libya maintain either headquarters or E&P offices in Houston. And since the Bush Administration further lifted restrictions on American companies in general, other American firms with a major presence in Houston have shown interest in Libya's first bid round under EPSA-IV terms, due to close at the end of this month. American companies have been waiting for quite some time to get back to (relatively underexplored) Libya, and that's certainly important news for Houston.
One would think the Chronicle might have run the Times story in its entirety, or at least supplemented the chop job with some quotes from local explorationists and/or consultancies.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/03/05 10:03 PM | Print |
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