The Daytona Beach News-Journal is the classic case of why daily metro newspapers are on their way out. The News-Journal is boring, reactive and filled with inane government meeting coverage and press-release generated cop news. This is the 21st century and people want their news now.
Thankfully, we have choices in Southeast Volusia. There's NSBNEWS.net with daily around the clock online coverage, the weekly print Observer newspaper (with a web version), NSBShadow.com and WSBB radio.
Why waste your money on day-old news in the News-Journal when you can see that recycled news on its Web site for free, if you want to get your fix of Daytona Beach police arrests, crimes, etc. There's also the bevy of news releases from the Volusia County Sheriff's Office the News-Journal has come to rely on.
Those of us who worked at the News-Journal several years back remember the days when original beat reporting meant something, even if we couldn't put brand names on cars and trucks in accidents (mandate from the Davidsons as not to offend Jon Hall's Glenn Ritchey).
And yes, we had to deal with all of those stories on the arts. But we also covered real news -- lots of it. My beat was cops and courts. Of course, I have more experience in this area than any other journalist in Volusia County -- from serial killer Aillen Wuornos to the Trull brothers to former Death row inmate Virginia Larzelere. We went out in the night and did stories n prostitution in Daytona Beach, quality of life in old communities like Spring Hill in DeLand and major takeouts on the Outlaws motorcycle gang and beachfront development.
What do we have today from he News-Journal? Drivel.
Sure, the lawsuit with Cox resulted in a lot of journalists losing their jobs. But far too many of the good reporters and a few editors were let go and those with favored status were allowed to stay. The quality of the newspaper speaks for itself.
Earlier this month, a New Smyrna Beach man was charged with being a "Peeping Tom." It took the News-Journal six days to report that story, and that was only after a call was made pointing out the obvious. On Saturday, the News-Journal published a story on the New Smyrna businesswoman arrested in the fatal hit-and-run.
Besides getting the victim's age wrong, the story made reference to the victim, Glenn Scott Gagnon, 42, being struck shortly after being asked by management to leave the bar. But the story failed to mention references in the same police report regarding drinking by the accused:
# Page 3: "On November 5, 2008, the New Smyrna Beach Police Department received a tip advising a female named Jana, who owns the Rivendell Salon on Canal Street in the city of New Smyrna Beach , left a party intoxicated..."
# Page 4: "Ms. (Jana) Grant (the accused) stated she was at a friend's house on North Peninsula and had consumed a glass of wine."
# Page 5: "Ms. (Rebecca) Dolan advises that she was with Ms. Grant earlier on the night of the crash and observed her drinking wine."
The News-Journal story Saturday also made no reference to the police report's background on the accused driver having been previously cited for a hit-and-run accident. The News-Journal left me and many others I have spoken with with the impression that the victim was some drunk who got run over and the driver was just a panicked motorist. But I know from the exhaustive police charging affidavit that this was not the case. His death was solely the result of being struck by a motorist who failed to stop, a motorist, according to police reports had been drinking.
The News-Journal corrected the age of the victim in Tuesday's paper after I pointed it out in an e-mail Monday, but ignored my other concern about the drinking. The victim's family and others, who live in New Smyrna Beach, criticized the story on the newspaper's reader's forum at the end of the story as well over the weekend.
The Orlando Sentinel was right on the mark with its coverage of the fatal hit-and-run and reference to drinking. Here is a portion of that story:
By Anika Myers Palm Sentinel Staff Writer 10:58 AM EDT, July 25, 2009
New Smyrna Beach police today announced the arrest of a woman in a November hit-and-run accident that left a man dead. Jana Calisse Grant, 47, was behind the wheel of a 2006 Chevrolet Silverado that struck and killed Glenn Scott Gagnon, 42, of Port Orange, on Nov. 1 as he walked along the North Causeway, police said.
Grant's arrest on Friday came after a lengthy investigation during which she was first interviewed by police less than a week after Gagnon's death.
Grant, who had been at a friend's house drinking wine on the night of the accident, initially told investigators she damaged her vehicle by striking a deer, but then said she had heard about the crash that killed Gagnon from the news media and that it had been "gnawing at her conscience," according to the police charging documents.
The Sentinel version was succinct and to the point just as our's was with NSNNEWS.net.
The News-Journal has more columnists and editorial writers than it has dependable reporters assigned to cover our area, which had its own daily section until the cutbacks were made and most of the staff shown the door and the Canal Street bureau closed.
Recently, the head of the New Smyrna Pennysaver was let go, a man with a lot of community good will.
Today, you will find very little in the way of news from Southeast Volusia in the morning edition of the News-Journal, with the exception of three obituaries and a wire story on trading in junker cars for new ones with a quote from a New Smyrna car dealership that is one of its advertisers.
These days, you'll find a News-Journal reporter covering a city Commission meeting in New Smyrna and if he's lucky enough to have his laptop story edited, it will be in the next day's newspaper, but more likely published two days later. And sometimes there will be an advance of the meeting after the reporter has gotten a copy of the agenda on Friday for a story published on the following Monday. Same thing in Edgewater. It was just a couple of years ago that Southeast Volusia had plenty of coverage in the News-Journal's Daily Journal. Those days are long gone.