My camera roll contains this front page from the Iowa City Press-Citizen with a story about a one-term president who’s been dead for 60 years:
Meanwhile, one of my mentors, former music critic and now emeritus professor Don McLeese, writes on social media about a Des Moines Register review of Foreigner’s Iowa State Fair performance:
An embarrassment, but I fault the paper rather than the reporter pressed into service. In graf 3 we get the names of all founding members, none of whom are currently in the band, while graf 4 gives the names of who is now in the band, without saying who does or plays what. But really, when this is your lead graf, you’ve got nowhere to go but. . .nowhere:
“Though Foreigner might be on their Farewell Tour, it felt like the very first time, as the band proved to the crowd of 11,141 on the second day of the Iowa State Fair that they will forever be one of the greatest rock bands of all time.”
This is not a bash-the-reporter post. It’s just hard to even feel like it’s worth criticizing Gannet, which strictly paywalls its sites, makes it impossible to unsubscribe, doesn’t offer its reporters the support — editors, pay, guidance, mentorship — they deserve and isn’t producing news that serve its communities.
The criticism I’ve leveled in this space over the past 15-plus years have often been dopey, but mocking critiquing has always come with some hope for improvement. That hasn’t been possible at Gannet properties for a while now, and my disappointment and acceptance is now complete, making this the last time I plan to acknowledge the present-tense existence of these papers.
So -30-, I guess.