Outtakes – Twice the News Coverage?

We can’t help but wonder if Mary Lightheart will soon be squatting atop the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s printing facility in Lowell.

rLightheart, who made headlines last spring with her sit-in protest of the removal of mature trees from Fayetteville’s CMN Business Park, is surely just as discouraged by the amount of newsprint being used to duplicate pages published by the D-G/Community Publishers Inc. alliance.

rPractically any day since late August when the D-G and CPI joined forces, there has been some duplication of coverage in their two-in-one newspaper products. The Northwest Arkansas Times and Benton County Daily Record are now distributed as separate papers within the D-G’s northwest distribution zones.

rThe plan was that the CPI papers would offer local news and opinions within the regional D-G.

rBut what’s actually happened is numerous stories and even entire pages have been replicated.

rThere were four examples, one national and three world news stories, in the Sept. 29 edition of the D-G/Times alone. On Oct. 1 and again on Oct. 8 in the D-G/Daily Record, both sports sections ran full page National Football League preview pages with identical logos and information.

rWe understand all of the bugs are still being worked out. In the meantime, however, how about using all that extra space for fresh copy?