Media Watch: How often do you get it? A lot more than the El Paso Times.

I cancelled my subscription to the worthless times, saved $190.00 a year, and although you never mention your former friend, I read the newspaper tree 3 or 4 times daily. NPT is on top of what is happening in el paso. I love davisk's letters also.

Feel free to make this public or keep it as just a note for staff—just wanted to express my appreciation for your coverage.

I grew up listening to my parents and their friends half-complain, half-laugh about what a rag the EP Times was, as if it was some kind of quaint backwards trait of small-town El Paso. It was said almost with a wink, "That's El Paso for you.'

But as an adult, I'm tired of the winking and joking because I know—at least I certainly hope--that it’s NOT EL Paso. That El Pasoans across cultures and socio-economic classes expect and believe they deserve more from 'The Paper'--the title of which implies a place of honor and of vital communication for the city, but is a reputation that's clearly undeserved.

I check npt.com regularly and click-through the RSS links sent to me several times daily. I go to NPT to stay updated on the real news of El Paso and the border, and to see what I can re-link to on my own blog for my little circle of readers. I'm glad, and proud, to be able to point to some real journalism coming out of my hometown.

On the other hand, I check elpasotimes.com just once a week--for the Celebrations section to see who's engaged, married, having kids, etc. The Times is basically a holiday 'what we've been up to' newsletter for me.

To that end, I submitted an editorial to the Times last year during the holiday season, and I was pleased that they chose to print it on Christmas day. If nothing else, I knew that the folks I most wanted to read it--my family and friends--would definitely see it. This year at least half of that circle—including those family friends who used to wink and laugh—finally cancelled their subscription following the McCain endorsement fiasco. So now the Times is a holiday newsletter that no one reads! (Frankly, I’m not sure I know anyone with a subscription who uses their hardcopy for more than the coupons and obits.)

NPT really has stepped up to create a new media outlet and take the place of prestige and reliability for local reporting that ‘The Paper’ implies. Don’t know what the town would do without your coverage…perhaps we’d still be winking at the Times.

its time to get our fbi,cia or military involved. it is only a matter of time that the cartels figures out who has moved over here and who hasnt.

i know i wouldnt want to live in a certain private area in the upper valley right now. to many influential mexican nationals living there right now(some are government).

of course obama is too worried about terrorist at guatanamo. he needs to tell bush what he wants done now here so when he takes over it is up to speed. i guess his arab muslim brothers are more important than us hispanic americans.

Hi Lisa, thank you for writing this. I, and many others, canceled our subscriptions following the EPT's decision to publish an endorsement of McCain that claimed that Obama was going to nationalize oil companies and health care providers, among others...I switched to EL Diario, which I wish would publish in English and take on the Times. It's a cartoon imitation of a paper. Any high tech firm considering locating in El Paso has to be turned off when discovering that THIS is the daily English language paper.

NPT has become essential for keeping informed, it's bookmarked on home and office computers. Keep up the good work...maybe we'll get rid of the El Paso Moment of Silence (that's how long it takes to read it). I love El Paso but I hope none of my out-of-town friends ever see this paper and think it is representative of this city.

Unfortunately for the EP Times they have to cater to the zombies who read their paper. Elephant trainers and funny looking fish are front page news!

The murder of a journalist in an attempt to create enough fear to quiet the press is way over their average reader's head. They don't understand why the 4th Estate must be able to operate without the fear of reprisal. They do not understand when a threat to everyone's freedom the murdering of a journalist is.

When someone is murdered for their words of truth, it should not be taken lightly. I'm proud of NPT for covering this story like they have.

Maybe folks will sit and reflect the cost of bringing them the truth.

I tried to subscribe to the El Paso Times. They charged me 18 bucks a month and never delivered the paper. I called to complain, and they told me it was my fault. They honestly think that we need them. I asked the customer service representative to let me speak to a manager but she was out to lunch. I left them my phone number and the manager never called me back. It must be nice not to have to worry about the customer.

Why do people like Helen have to turn everything to do with the times into something about the Mccain endorsement?

Let it go people. Let it go.

Hi Lisa :-) I just went to the elpasotimes.com right now and the big headline is this:

"El Paso's 'Hometown Hottie' doesn't expect victory Wednesday." - referring to that girl in Maxim.

Awesome. I'd totally give NPT the win here, but you guys did put that Sarah Palin Porno Movie article as the top story that one time... You guys still win overall in percentage of articles I would read.

Top story on the "Times" website right now: "El Paso's 'Hometown Hottie' doesn't expect victory Wednesday."
Does this deserve front page attention?
What kind of message is this sending about how El Paso percieves the role of women?
El Paso is better than this

The Times is so bad because the people who work there are afraid.

Some worked their entire careers for Gannett, a deep-pockets sugar-mommy with a stifling bureaucracy and brutal company politics. A few years ago The Times was taken over by MediaNews Group, a more free-wheeling, but debt-burdened, bare-fisted type of company.

Recently, their editor -- at least he was familiar to them -- departed and they got a new one. My guess is the new guy is being aloof initially until he figures out what's what. An aloof editor scares the rank and file. They are not accustomed to that.

Then the Times totally screwed up when the newspaper's bloggers revealed a less-than-united fron on the McCain endorsement. Ooops. We appreciated your candor but that internal finger-pointing resonated way up the chain of command, you can bet.

Add to all that the economy, which had hit the newspaper business especially hard. Now the MediaNews CEO is making speeches about outsourcing key functions of the newsroom to India. (No, I'm not making that up.) Any profit the Times might make now surely goes to help prop up its cash-strapped step-siblings in New Mexico.

Newspapers everywhere -- from the Las Cruces Sun-News to the Wall Street Journal -- are giving up their presses and outsourcing that work, too. So newspaper companies are thinking they'll just give up all that production cost and distribute their product on the WWW. Remember that the newspaper industry belongs to the manufacturing sector, not media. Also confronting the industry is the stark reality that their Web site ads will sell for a fraction of what their print edition ads fetch. It's just that the print editions don't have nearly enough ads anymore to justify the production costs. And sites like The Newspaper Tree (my personal favorite) are way ahead and poised to dominate.

The Times people also know that once its paper edition is gone, anyone could hire a few reporters and an editor and have everything they have -- oh yeah, except all that debt.

That's what I think.

After the Times endorsed McCain, I, like Helen, did let it go. I haven't picked up an issue since, along with a lot of other people I know. That the Times endorsed McCain was not the surprise; it was the Palin-like language in the editorial that pushed me over the edge.

But whatever your reason to dump the Times may be, there are no shortage of reasons to choose from.

Though I wish NPT would have more regular updates and news posts, it definitely blows the Times away in substance. And I'm glad there are alternatives we can turn to.

Anyone who cancels a subscription primarily because of a political endorsement is just showing a considerable amount of shallowness and feeblebrained thinking.

Some of you folks -- including Lisa and her fellow left-wingers at NPT -- are taking yourselves way too seriously.

I read NPT to keep up on the liberal take on things. Ragging on publications that handle news stories differently than you do should be beneath you.

When Crowder's big stories were relegated to that spot — and no one saw them — he christened that position of the paper "the coffin corner."

For Bob Larson - it's not because the Times endorse McCain - that was their choice - it;s the red-baiting way they chose to do it,charging Obama with intentions that there is no evidence for - were they channeling ole Joe McCarthy? Pretty poor performance for a newspaper in a major metropolitan area. I challenge you to find another McCain endorsement in a comparable city that made such silly charges....and hey, that was only 2 weeks ago. I could cite dozens of other reasons - how about the selection of letters they publish? The cartoon-style headlines? The lack of any investigative journalism? (Anyone seen any articles lately about the terrible condition of the streets around UTEP, Rim, Kern Place? Thought not).

Pinch,

I don't know why I'm bothering to respond, considering your utter lack of knowledge but they're are plenty of people in this city who've invested time and money in supporting the fight against torture. What this country has done in Guantanamo is despicable, and to go about using that weak argument to further your idiotic claims is outright ridiculous. Good god, Obama hasn't even taken office yet, and he has his hands full with the economic situation of this country. Why should we invest more in the situation in Mexico, when it's clear that their past efforts have yet to accomplish anything?

The Mexican community needs to rally together, and be more vigilante with these drug dealers. This is the only way something will be accomplished, instead of turning a blind eye, citizens need to protest, unite and put forth a better effort to regaining stability in their country. Not only for themselves, but the younger generations that are having to witness this chaos and grow up in this unstable world. Armando Rodriguez was a trailblazer, and it's horrible that some no good thug ended such a promising life and shattered the lives of his family.

Democracy comes at a heavy price, and now's the time that the community needs to stand up and take back what those drug cartels, corrupt politicians, crooked cops, and street thugs have done to this region.

As much as I can appreciate the criticism on the El Paso Times, I do find one large flaw with Ms. Degliantoni's critique of west Texas' only English newspaper. It is perceived that Ms. Degliantoni has hope for the El Paso TImes. It is evident that it will never reach the journalistic quality of similar papers like used toilet paper or paper that hot dogs stands wrap their items in.

Great opinion piece. EP Times is one of the top five things holding the City back. It has failed to progress under consistently poor leadership for decades!. Lisa- and others in the business, can you shed some light for us? What is a City of this size doing or not doing to deserve this? You would not imagine from what you read of the Times that this City is home to a world class university offering more master's and doctoral degrees than they could ever imagine and still counting. That it is home to Fort Bliss, world class medical facilities, successful companies, a banking center, arts and cultural center. It's like we are portrayed in the Times as our smallest poorest county pocket and that we are so uneducated and unsophisticated and backward that our focus has not progressed beyond championing our local beauty queens to encourage younger girls to focus on the way they look. Geez, that Times cover above could be from 1950! While our local women and men are earning degrees in engineering, sciences, education, finance, communications ; launching businesses, writing books, moving up the corporate ladder, filing patents on inventions. Please don't end it here with this opinion, what do we need to do to change it?!

The El Paso Times is a disappointment.

Rupture -
Give us your thoughts on public protests once you've found heads and decapitated bodies hanging in your neighborhood. It's not turning a blind eye, it's turning a terrorized eye. Citizen protests aren't the solution, a military approach like Baghdad would be.

It was front page news, it's not like it was on the back pages of the Classifieds. keep in mind that this is still El Paso, and El Paso news should come first. that news was already a full day old.

I read the EP Times, the Diario and NPT. They cover slightly different stories with different angles. To be fair to the EP Times, NPT still doesn't have the broad coverage of the EP Times. I didn't see a story on the recent burning of the restaurant on Lee Trevino, for example. So I read the NPT for in depth stories on heavier news, the Times for a broad (but shallow) overview of what's going on and the Diario to see what's happening in Juarez. I've given up on any media outlet in El Paso caring about what happens in Juarez.

The El Paso Times used to be a pretty good newspaper, but when Gannett bought it in the 1970s, the steady decline in quality began, due mainly to Gannett's penny-pinching ownership philosophy.

Gannett turned it into a USA Today clone.

A few years ago, I called the Times sports desk seeking info on the high school baseball playoffs, and the staffer I talked to looked up the details on the Internet.

It was slow going, and we chatted a while. He said, "Sorry this is taking so long -- we have old computers."

I said, "I suppose it's way too much to expect Gannett to pop for a new computer system for the newsroom?"

He answered, "No way! They'd actually have to spend some money on us."

Corporate ownership -- as opposed to local ownership -- isn't always what it's cracked up to be.

While I agree with the nuts and bolts or your editorial, I think it is ironic that you are upset. El Paso Media, in part, owes a large part of its success to the inadequacies of the El Paso Times.

I just moved back to EP this fall after a 12 year absence. I was quickly drawn to everything that is being produced by El Paso Media, while the Times serves me well in my unusual knack for almost completing crossword puzzles and unscrambling 8th grade words. Perhaps if the Times was printed on softer, two-ply paper I could begin to use it to wipe my ass.

Don't take the inventory of the El Paso Times. Who cares that their opinion writers are too busy regurgitating Bill O'Reilly and Lush Rimbaugh? Don't even hold them accountable. Let them continue on their path to failing miserabling and going the way of the Herald-Post. It will make El Paso Media all the stronger.

Faithfully,
Jacob Plaut

Not much to add to your comments except to say the Times does not get it. What does this say about our city if this is the only English language newspaper. The Times endorsment of McCain was their right to do so even if I do not agree with their choice, but the language they used to attack Obama was nothing more than right wing propaganda. I am proud to be bilingual and thus able to enjoy a real newspaper, El Diario. Thank NPT for their efforts in keeping us informed with all the latest information, local and nationwide in English. Thanks

Just moved back to El Paso from Seattle and asked my father why he was still paying for such a bad newspaper. His answer, "he doesn't want our poor delivery guy to lose a customer."

Corporate ownership of the El Paso Times, by an out of town corporation, is only interested in one thing: sucking profits out of El Paso. The formula is simple. Maximize revenues and minimize expenses.

It is unbelievable that El Paso media would ignore the shocking daily events that are occuring in Cd. Juarez and throughout Mexico. El Pasoans who do not read, listen to, or understand the Spanish coverage of these daily events in the Cd. Juarez media have no idea how absolutely horrible life has become South of our border.

Most El Pasoans are not aware that death threats were made last week against Cd. Juarez school children unless school administrators and teachers paid large sums of money to a criminal organization. Businesses throughout Cd. Juarez are being subjected to extortion demands under threats of death or arson. Now these extortion demands are being made to schools!!! Yet not one word in the El Paso Times about this that I am aware of. This should have been front page headline news.

This week a commando type group of thugs entered a Taco Tote in Cd. Juarez and stole, at gun point, money and jewelry from all the customers and employees in the restaurant. No reports in the English media.

On October 11th an editorial appeared in the El Paso Times entitled "Juarez Shows Moxie With Invite to Tourists." The piece criticized Cd. Juarez efforts, through billboards in El Paso and other cities in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, to draw tourists to a city with such serious crime problems.

On October 25th, William Sanders co-wrote an editorial piece which was published in the El Paso Times entitled "Editorial hinders regional progress." Sanders' piece began, "Your editorial on Oct. 11, 'Juarez shows moxie with invite to tourists,' was a singular example of poor regional citizenship."

I do not agree. All El Pasoans are entitled to be fully informed, by El Paso media, of the daily events in Cd. Juarez. Since many, many Juarences are moving their families to El Paso, the violence may well attempt to follow these targets into El Paso. We need to be aware and vigilant.

I have cancelled my subscription to the times as it is a worthless rag sheet. Keep up the great work NPT. Our time has FINALLY come in El Paso and the nation is discovering what a vibrant, progressive, culturally exciting place this is. Too bad the EP Times is not coming along for the ride. Between the daily grammatical errors and misspellings, to the distasteful McCain endorsement I choose to get my new from NPT. Keep up the good work.

I left El Paso 12 years ago, but still have family in El Paso who we regularly visit 2-3 times a year. During my visits I've routinely seen things that I felt compell to write an article to the EPT (e.g. Gas price and quality discrepencies), after returning back to N. Texas. The response I got from EPT was, to the say it mildly, very frustrating. It was quite obvious that what I had observed was not something they were comfortable reporting.

From what I'm seeing, the NPT is on the right track. Keep up the great work - I'll be reading it.

How could I not respond to this story?

To put down the El Paso Times, as NPT has done, is to forget that the Times, for all its faults, still has some excellent journalists working there. Maybe it went somewhat soft, what with Don Flores as the editor, but, don't forget it was the Times who used to publish Diana Washington Valdez's courageous stories and columns about the cartels in Juarez and throughout Mexico (long before any other reporter thought to do that). For the longest time, she was the only journalist risking her life by writing about the murderous hoods. The Times has also published Diana's excellent stories about the murders of women in Juarez. Remember? You 'member. Ramon Bracamontes and Ramon Renteria continue to be two of El Paso's strongest and greatest advocates for issues that impact on Chicanos and other Hispanics.

As a journalist myself, I have worked for The El Paso Herald-Post, The El Paso Times, and have written for NPT and for El Paso Magazine, the Eastside Reporter, Rio Views Magazine, the Frontier Voice, and many others. I even had my own newspaper at one time (actually, it belonged to five El Paso businessmen) called The El Paso Reporter. It's tough pleasing everybody, but the effort is made whether you're an online pub like NPT, or whether you're mainstream, as is The El Paso Times. I even worked for USA Today as a loaner when I was with the Times, as one of the editors on the Across the USA page. My column was also distributed by Gannett News Service to newspapers across this great land of ours. It serves no purpose to criticize one newspaper, as if the alternative is any more perfect. It's not, you know.

Every publication can use improvement, but, every publication works hard to bring the public the news that particular publication feels the public needs to know. Can't second-guess anyone, you know? Sure, I've had complaints against the Times, just as I've had complaints against NPT, the Herald-Post, and others, but, I admire and respect the efforts of everyone of those publications, especially their hard working staffs. So, go, El Paso media - keep bringing us whatever news you choose, and we will either read and admire, or not read and discard - that's our privilege as free Americans, you know.

Sin Fin