Local news options??

[A*lil*Loopy]

So what are we left to choose from locally? I understand that Sootoday and Local2 are now the same and therefore covering the same content. I no longer feel confident in reading them as a source for local matters that I feel are important. It has come to my attention that they will no longer be covering anything regarding animal abuse cases that involve the OSPCA due to the personal interests of the editor. (ie: she is a witness in the Circle H Ranch animal abuse case)
I understand that the Sault Star is willing to cover local issues but I still wonder if there are more news options available?

Where are we to get our news when we know situations are occurring but yet they are kept silent. I know that the Humane Society released a press release about their fundraising for the shelter via an online auction....yet Sootoday and Local2 did not announce it...was it not important to enough readers? As one of the contributors that donate, I also expected that more people would know that my company supported local charities. What other businesses are aware that the charities we support are being black listed? Is this behaviour something we accept? Although donating to a charity seems like personal interest, it is also advertising for our businesses.

So please tell me, where can I follow local news that is unbiased and where may I put my advertising that I feel comfortable?

[IMHO]

I notice that on LOCAL2 you can no longer comment on any stories posted...at least I cannot find a way. Lets face it...we are a one horse town when it comes to local news coverage. They will present to us what they receive from others...there is no such thing as a reporter out there "searching" for news stories. Even CTV out of Sudbury provides little Soo content. Local 2 and sootoday might just as well fold and open one new cyber location...talk about duplication.

[Craig Huckerby]

So do you think another option for news media would make it in the Sault?

[IMHO]

Combine local2 and sootoday into one..avoid the duplication......other than that NO...we are too small.

[Craig Huckerby]

But by making two into one, doesn't that open a door for a new competitor? Just talking here, I have no plans to do that..

[Official Cat of Soonet]

What i liked about the Sault Star is that they used to cover a lot of different things that the other 2 sites didn't cover especially court cases. Local2 would also often have a lot of different stories as well. Now the 2 sites are carbon copies of each other. The only purpose i can see for doing this is so that they have more ad space and can pretend to be different sites. As for the whole "morning news cast" on Local 2, I just cant see enough people watching a video of all the stuff they read about yesterday.

I think the biggest thing Sootoday has is the comments section at the end of the story. Everyone likes to read them and on big stories, they usually keep people checking more often.

[IMHO]

Being able to comment is very important. yes...there are always trouble makers...those making crude comments...but appoint a few mods and that problem can be controlled pretty well. Local2 basically caved in to those abusing the comments section instead of being pro active and engaging a few of us regulars to moderate .IMHO of course.

[A*lil*Loopy]

I've stopped looking at the carbon copies and started looking at Sault Star...I was never a Sault Star follower but I've switched. There may be room for more news coverage as long as it is willing to not be so shy. I would love to be able to read about everything big and small and what seems to be missing on the carbon copies is anything that is human interest locally. There doesn't seem to be any heart to anything.

I'm a commenter and have found that although I can be passionate and loud, there are some that are just plain crude and are only looking to stir anger. There is really no way to prevent stupid people from accessing the internet so there is the good with the bad. Having mods is a good idea.

[lynys]

I rarely frequent Sootoday anymore because it became a joke. Local 2 making the merge with it has sealed it's fate IMO. So, the only local media I actually read, are links friends post on Facebook, or what is posted in here. Craig, I'm not sure why Local 2 merged with Sootoday, but it was a bad move... it might not be a bad idea to start again.

[Craig Huckerby]

well I have no intention in starting over again, been there done that. At first the merge with sootoday seemed like a good solid business move. But like everything, some ideas are just bad to begin with. It had promise but once the sootoday people taking over the content on local2, I knew the end was near for me. I told that before I left that the content is suffering. Local2 and sootoday used to be totally different sites and we tried hard not to duplicate content. Today, that doesn't seem to matter. Very sad about that.

[The Freq]

I rarely frequent Sootoday anymore because it became a joke. Local 2 making the merge with it has sealed it's fate IMO. So, the only local media I actually read, are links friends post on Facebook, or what is posted in here. Craig, I'm not sure why Local 2 merged with Sootoday, but it was a bad move... it might not be a bad idea to start again.

I totally agree. The merge was "uneventful". Sadly, Sootoday has a strange clique on music stories which oddly revolves around the same group of musicians and bar. That stinks. ;-) As for news, Sootoday misses a lot and if it wasn't for the public in general throwing them news stories via email, we'd find most news via Facebook gossip like Lynys says. . We need a local TV station. We need a "good" local music station. Even an organized Youtube site for Sault News that the public could submit some material to would be better than what we have. ;-)

[Official Cat of Soonet]

Just out of curiosity how many people actually watch video? I know there are times I watched some but never really on a daily basis. It's nice knowing it's there but it just seems every video that shows up, I had already read about. It's like Vernes Hardware, I loved that place and I knew they had things you couldn't get anywhere else but I just would never go.

[Craig Huckerby]

Depending on the video it can attract a lot of views.

[Official Cat of Soonet]

I watched a lot of videos at Local2 when it seemed like an interesting story. The new morning video just seems like something nobody would watch because its a very brief recap of what I already read the day before. I could be wrong but I can't see a lot of people watching it everyday. I will say the girl doing the video is pretty hot so it's nothing against her. I have been critical of sootoday here over the years because it just comes across as lazy news. Maybe it is budget issues that they cant have reporters go out but I really think reporting on how court cases turn out would be a huge draw. Right now the Vic Fremlin cottage case is on Sault Star and you would never see such a story on the other sites. It would also benefit people who get aquitted of their crimes.

Bottom line, you can tell when effort is put in to news and I dont see it anywhere on the two main online sites. Right now The Sault Star has the best site for news. To not be able to read about the circle H story because one person has a conflict of interest is garbage.

[Official Cat of Soonet]

Case in point read the Bow Lake story on the sault star website and read the one at local2. One is a cut and pasted news release and one isn't. One took 30 seconds to post and one has effort.

[IMHO]

Craig...where are you now? I did not know you had left local2.

[CANVIK]

It's too bad a local partnership couldn't be forged with Shaw to purchase the rights to our local CBC or Global signal as they have done in Thunder Bay and Kingston. Something with more of our international local content at least for a half hour a day, and a spot on the dial across the country on Shaw Direct or Bell is advertising for the city. Sell it off as a tourism expense for our International city, maybe enough that the signal could be carried across the north as a competitor to MCTV.

[Craig Huckerby]

IMHO I am currently "between careers" and yes Canvik, that would be a great thing to happen. In fact my maintain that the mandate of the CBC is to provide a small local news package for every market over 50,000 providing a short news package every day in those markets, with them losing hockey in the next few years they have t do something to get the viewers and individual local newscasts would do that.

[Craig Huckerby]

can't argue with anything you just said

[MFK]

I read the Sault Star now. They have more in-depth coverage of news events than Sootoday and Local2 combined. I NEVER, ever, ever, ever, ever liked Sootoday.com. EVER. I was 100% against them ever since I first started following current events in 2008 as a young elementary school kid. Soonews.ca was the best, their forums were useful for people to voice their opinions about any topic. Local2.ca dropped the forum, but I still had faith in their journalists, especially Craig, of course. And the launch of the Local2tv was a huge step forward. When Sootoday purchased Local2, I seen fewer stories. The quality of the site went downhill fast, Disqus was taken off and now if you want to comment on a story you need to use the Facebook commenting. I turned to the Star and I found that their quality of news is superior than the other options.