The Sept.19th cover story asks “Is Dale High’s Crossings project Dead in the Water?” WATCHDOG: No way. But it may shrink!

KUDOS for its editorial of Sept. 17 entitled “Holding off on a driver’s license” that notes that New Jersey, the only state that issues licenses as late as 17, has a very significant reduction in teens killed in crashes, 18 per 100,000 vs. 26 per 100,000 in Connecticut. Even if Pennsylvania state law remains at […]

KUDOS for their insightful Sept. 18 editorial “Distorting lessons.” The article points out that the troubles that plagued Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did not result from their lending policies, but rather from the fall in housing values due to the irresponsible sub-prime lending by others. “It was private financial institutions that developed the subprime […]

According to the Sept. 16 New Era: At the time of the arrest of former county coroner Dr. G. Gary Kirchner, former Lancaster County coroner, Attorney General Tom Corbett said the coroner “violated the public trust in order to help a small group of reporters gain an edge over competing media outlets.” The New Era […]

In what has become his “Marv and Abbey” column, Editor Marv Adams shares with readers the reasons behind placements of columns and choices of photos. WATCHDOG: Although we did not altogether follow Adam’s explanations, we appreciate that he does not speak down to his readers. We think this is one of the reasons why the […]

SUNDAY NEWS “Sunday’s Guest” Bill Adams, former president of Armstrong, opens his column by asking “Was your newspaper a little heavy today? There’s a message in all that advertising that comes with your paper: Retailers want to reach newspaper readers…They use what works for them.” WATCHDOG: To the contrary, both the daily and Sunday newspapers […]

The Sept. 5th issue (www.LancasterPost.com) leads with “Molly Henderson Wins round One against Lancaster Newspapers”, features a second installment by Artie See on the origins of the Convention Center project, explores the issue of noise abatement versus free speech, and contains an exclusive interview with baseball great Rick Wise. WATCHDOG: This was the Post’s best […]

Sept. 5 headline: “What the ‘frak’? Faux curse word seeping into language” WATCHDOG: According to Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition, to curse is to “swear profanely.” Profanity is “irreverence.” “Frak” is a surrogate for a word that has little direct connection to invoking God’s intervention. There is a difference between a curse and something that […]

On August 30, the Intell announced the consolidation of its and the New Era’s sports department under sports editor Jeff Young. WATCHDOG: The consolidation of the sport staff seems like another step towards the ultimate merger of morning and evening papers as a result of the shifting of advertisement dollars to the Internet experienced by […]

On Aug.31, the paper ran a one-third of a page ad by Turkey Hill featuring both a pitch for four brands of cigarettes, and an offer of free candy with a soft drink. The ad shows boxes of Sundance, Marlboro, Camel and Newport brand cigarettes. The “Surgeon General Warning” was too small for most to […]

The Aug. 28 “Letters to the Editor” contains one headed “Who’s the next keynoter?” and which criticized Ted Kennedy as follows: “This is the same great American who, about 40 years ago, drove off a bridge with a young female passenger in his car, got himself out and left her to drown. He failed to […]

The Aug. 24 editorial “Do the math” concerning the cost of health care concludes “In the end, the real answer probably lies in comprehensive health insurance reform, possibly a universal single-payer system; without it, the economy will continue to be crippled by an insurance bureaucracy that has made a mockery of ‘managed care.’” WATCHDOG: NewsLanc […]

An editorial of August 15 entitled “Fair Trial, Free Press, and the Constitution” criticizes District Attorney Craig Stedman for jeapordizing Michael Roseboro’s rights to a fair trial by making prejudicial statements concerning the case before the media, thus tainting the objectivity of any jury pool. It concludes “Mr. Stedman’s evident and alarming affection for the […]

An editorial of August 17 describes the many laudable things that a 2.6 mile, ten minute interval, street car loop will achieve for downtown Lancaster. They anticipate a quarter million riders annually. WATCHDOG: We proposed such a loop many months ago, so we can hardly disagree. But we differ in two significant ways: 1) More […]