Web Letters: The Newspaper Biz: 'More Poison, Please'?

A point that Alterman misses when he laments over the possible demise of the Boston Globe is that it is not a very good newspaper. I canceled my subscription two years ago when the editors chose to report--on the front page, no less--a half-page, above-the-fold article on a new luxury mall that had opened in a Boston suburb. Featured in the article, with not a hint of irony, was a woman who gushed over the new condo she had just bought that was in the mall! The most exciting part? The condo elevator was able to swish her from the front door of her apartment directly into the heart of the mall! The war in Iraq? Guantánamo? Bush's eroding our civil liberties? I guess the Globe's editors decided, it being so close to Christmas and all, that we'd prefer to read about the happiness a Boston-area woman found within a mall.

Residents of Boston have many ways to get our print news; every one of them excels in an area the Boston Globe does not. The New York Times does a better job of covering national and international news, the (free) Boston Phoenix does a better job of covering Boston politics, arts and opinion, and the (free) Boston Metro does a better job of distilling local news into just the right number of words that can be digested on a subway or bus commute.

I, too, am alarmed about the state of the American newspaper. Citizens are better off when we have more reporters snooping around than we do today. But I am not at all convinced we are better off if those reporters are snooping around in luxury condos and the mall.

Marla Felcher

Cambridge, MA