Morning News Meeting Coverage Mind Numbing (Media Review)

We opened the May 12 issue of Fayetteville edition of The Morning News and saw that half of the front page was eaten up by meeting-advance stories.

We know this is a tradition with The Morning News on Mondays (the slowest of slow-news days), but we think it’s time the Springdale-based newspaper gave its readers a break. Put the meeting coverage inside, ESPECIALLY if it’s an article about what will be considered at a meeting that hasn’t even taken place yet. Yes, there are readers who want to know about upcoming meetings, but we don’t believe the advance stories justify a marquee spot on Page 1.

By contrast, on the same day, the front of the Northwest Arkansas section in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (that newspaper’s equivalent of the front local page) consisted of five very newsy stories, including an interview with trucking mogul J.B. Hunt. None of the D-G stories on that page was about a meeting, and we managed to stay awake through the whole thing.