Foreword: The following is taken from a series of scathing emails penned by yours truly chronicling the steady downward trajectory of the local newspaper. Since my unscheduled departure at the end of June, the pathetic powers that be have continued and even escalated their bloody-minded mission to kill off this historic publication. Read it and weep!
Land of Ash Coroner's Report
Name of deceased: The Daily Press
Known aliases: Ashland Daily Press, The Daily Mess, The Daily Distress, The Daily Joke
Last known address: 100 block of West Turd Street
Cause of death: Brutal homicide
Main Suspect: Doofus Thornbird
Accomplices: Toad Coitus, Towanda Moolah
Detailed autopsy
For the second time in less than a month, Page 1 starts off with a glaring mistake in the date at the top: "Saturday, Sept. 21, 2013, 2013". Someone must have used the Saturday template from two weeks ago and didn't notice the error ... again.
The top story is a feature by Kyle F'inn Jones with submitted photos, in other words, another badly rewritten press release that fell into his lap of luxury. The article is about a Bayfield retiree (Hmmm, he is retired at 53? Must be fucking nice!) paddling around the Apostle Islands in an inflatable kayak. In typical Jones style, the cutline on the main photo refers to the "Apostle's".
And once again, the story is so horrendous it must be read to be believed. I am happy to oblige:
It seems like there is something in the water here in the bay area. Some type of microscopic organism that pushes residents into great adventures in the region’s abundant natural resources or possibly an altruistic wind that burrows into the skin, which thrust those it touches into the wild for either discovery or conservation.
No matter what it is, the people that inhabit northwest are of a different breed.
For example, Bayfield’s John Murphy, who just returned from a week long 84-mile kayaking trip through the Apostle Islands, and he did it all in an inflatable kayak.
Murphy, 53, is now retired and lives in Bayfield, working as a part time fitness instructor and operating Super Horizons, a kayak rental and sea caves tour establishment.
The recently retired kayaker moved to Bayfield a few years ago from Houston, Texas, though he originally hails from Racine, Wis.
His kayaking journey stemmed from an itch for a challenge and an underlying need for a self-journey or vision quest, says Murphy.
Murphy is an avid kayaker and prefers to use an Innova Helios II, which is an inflatable kayak. His preference earns him the jest of quite a lot of locals, “Well those things are toys, they’re not safe,” says Murphy. “I tell them, well your kayak has a better chance of breaking then mine does ripping open.”
With an itch for adventure, Murphy being well experienced in adventure races down south, decided, “Well, I take people out so I said, you know what, I’m gonna do all these islands in a week.”
From there he set out planning his route and adventure. After mapping his route, which weaved between over 15 different islands and asking locals when the best time to try to accomplish this would be, he decided to set out mid day on Sept. 11 out of Myers Beach just northeast of Cornucopia.
Murphy made it to York Island before camping out for the night. Though a difficult task the kayaker was well prepared, “I had a concept of how to pace myself, when to eat and when to hydrate,” said Murphy. “I had my CamelBak I’d take sips out of and I’d eat something every 30 minutes.”
Along with his kayak and camping supplies, Murphy carried a marine radio and a handheld satellite phone to check in with his wife every night.
Due to nasty weather midway through the trip Murphy was forced to camp out on Ironwood Island for two nights until everything cleared up. The next day he made it to Michigan Island and spent the night, the next day’s trek would prove to be the hardest part of his journey.
Michigan Island to Long Island was somewhat of a home stretch for the kayaker though it was the longest part of his journey at over 20 miles.
“Being that the kayak is higher than a normal one the winds really tossed me around,” said Murphy. “The waves were about five feet, though they were exciting it was kind of spooky, but with the inflatable it’s very encouraging because it will float. I never felt like I was going to tip over in it.”
The wind and sheer distance took its toll on Murphy but he soldiered on. “I was heading west and had a southwest wind and my bearing was 15 degrees off so I could keep myself on target.” said Murphy.
After 7 days and eight hours Murphy finally reached Bayview Park at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 18, completing his 84-mile journey.
According to locals and his knowledge, Murphy figures he is the first person in this short of time, to hit all these islands and do so in an inflatable kayak.
“The best part was discovering the islands, the national park services do a great job maintaining their campsites.” said Murphy.
Whether it be something in the water, or the simple fact that people here are just bred differently, northwest Wisconsin adds another person and story to its long list of accomplished adventurous outdoors men and women.
NOTES: It's Meyers Beach, dumbass. And how many times does he tell the readers the guy lives in Bayfield?! Three, by my count. Other numerous offenses include misuse of commas, missing hyphenation, clueless punctuation and run-on sentences. And don't forget the "Racine, Wis." reference, contrary to AP Style. Aaughh!!
The other front-page travesty is penned by the old Reekster and it's one of his favorite topics: synthetic drugs. For the umpteenth time he trots out that tired "whack-a-mole" quote he has taken to attributing to DA Kelly McKnight, although I am pretty sure it was first uttered by Circuit Court Judge Robert Eaton.
Here are a few of the article's lowlights:
"...are sold indiscriminately over the county in head shops, gas stations and convenience stores."
I believe the phrase is "over the counter." LOL
"...whenever one substance is banned, the synthetics manufacturers which to a slightly different drug molecule, evading the state law."
Evidently some drug makers would rather fight than "which." ;-)
"Currently, a bi-partisan group of legislators is seeking to overcome the short fallings of the original legislation, and has proposed new legislation, which has not as yet been introduced as a bill in either house of the legislature."
"Short fallings"? Really?!! Between all of the legislators, legislation and legislature, my head is spinning. Not to mention "bipartisan" is not supposed to be hyphenated and Legislature is always supposed to be capitalized.
“We’ll see.” He said.
Say what?! LOL
Misc. offenses: He refers to Rep. Nick Milroy as being from Superior when I know damn well he lives in South Range, and he again calls McKnight the "Ashland District Attorney" rather than Ashland County DA. The story's jumphead is jammed right up under the page header and the descenders rest right on top of the copy. Yuk!
Contributing causes of death:
A submitted photo on Page 3 of the recent Walk to School Day event bears the extremely obvious and pedestrian (pun intended) teaser: WALKING TO SCHOOL IN THE RAIN
Page 5 has a lengthy submitted article and photo about a new business in Ashland. Um gee, maybe this should have been saved for the Business Monday page, which has been hurting for local copy for weeks now. DUH!!
The Milestones page has the exact same birth announcement that already ran on Friday. Ah-hah! Upon closer inspection, it's not the same. Apparently, a set of grandparents was omitted. Of course, there's no way of knowing if the family made the mistake or if the paper did, but the way they corrected it is pretty sloppy:
Grandparents are Charles and Jean Whiting of Ashland and Kevin and Janice Greene of Ashland and Larry and Kathy Evenson.
Too lazy to add a comma and take out the second "and," plus no town listed for the final set of grandparents that they just tacked on to the end of the sentence.
I noticed this little gem in the Area Reports about the Discover Wisconsin crew's two-day visit to the area next week: Secretary of the Department of Tourism Stephanie Klett will now not be attending either event due to an unexpected incident. I had to laugh after Jones made such a big deal out of her coming here in his dreadful story in Thursday's paper. (Just went back and checked and this item appeared in Friday's paper as well, meaning the very next day after Jones trumpeted Klett's visit, she had already canceled it. LMAO!!)
BTW: That wedding announcement for "Brandon and Rachel" ran again Friday because they had the first name of the bride's mother wrong. Again, hard telling who is at fault, but if it was the newspaper's error it is really pathetic because at four sentences, that was one of the shortest wedding announcements ever.
Here's the Dear Abby headline as it appears:
Husbands nonstop nature wears
on wife’s patience
And yes, the second deck only goes over two columns rather than four. And yes, hell has completely frozen over because Abby is actually on the Milestones page!
Page 10 has a story from the Spooner Advocate about a fire destroying the Town of Gordon fire station on Thursday. I saw this on the 5:30 p.m. Duluth TV news Thursday. The awful cutline reads: Gordon Fire Station destroyed by fire/explosions No period (evidently a Spooner specialty) and the use of a slash instead of the word "and." Blech!!
The story is penned by Frank Zufall, who must have attended the Reek Duhleavo School of Journalism, graduating with honors. Check out this lede:
Explosions inside the Gordon Fire Station and the resultant fire destroyed the station and all of the fire trucks and equipment early Thursday afternoon, Sept. 19, in the town of Gordon, Douglas County.
"Resultant"?! I believe the word is "resulting." And it should be "Town of Gordon" and why would you use both the day of the week and the date? Not to mention listing the county!
One more fun excerpt:
The first report said the fire and explosions were the result of lighting from a storm front that had moved into the area...
Sigh. Why is it so difficult for people to spell "lightning"?!!
There are two subheads in the story which the paginators ignored, so they appear in regular body copy, justified left. Near the end of the article, Zufall (I wonder if they changed the family's name from Pufall at Ellis Island?) refers to replacement equipment arriving "before the end of the week," drawing further attention to the days-old nature of this literally "late"-breaking story.
Pages 11 and 12 are the usual Health Matters debacle, with the second page being completely filled with StatePointless crap. The story kicker on the first item advises readers that "REPURPOSING LEFTOVER IS ONE KEY TO NO-FUSS COOKING". Apparently only one leftover is all that is required! And why is this on a health page anyway?
Oh well, here endeth our tale of woe. FYI: The newsroom is no longer "expanding" because they finally stopped running that stupid ad. Maybe they are going to make Heidi start writing the Business Mondays on top of everything else. :-(
Signed,
Vicious Yet Vivacious Vivisectionist
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