Report of the very sad story of a 17 YO who murdered his mother (another teenager who slipped through the woefully inadequate/underfunded Herts CAHMS 'safety net'?) uses this 'thoughtful' photograph under the headline: Just in case you missed the picture 'detail' they repeat it full size halfway through the article:
What is their problem? Shameful and insensitive. I’d say stick to reporting the football, but that also appears too challenging.
I think most sixth form magazines are better put together than the shambles that is the Watford Observer these days.
https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/contact/ I've sent the editor Victoria Birch my thoughts on the issue: victoria.birch@london.newsquest.co.uk
It’s not a local paper where journalism has any value. It’s content is written remotely online by very young employees. News quest has had a terrible impact on the titles it owns.
Aside from the poor quality journalism and lack newsworthy material, it's an utterly abysmal website - clogged up with adverts, slow to load and difficult to navigate. I stopped going on there years ago. It's a perfect formula to run the various papers it fronts into the ground.
Agreed it's poor information, written poorly, on a dreadful website. 30 years ago the weekly paper was eagerly anticipated with its' detailed match reports, transfer news etc. There's really no point in going to the website for sports news now. I'm sure it won't exist in 10 years time.
If you think the wobby posts **** you should see the competition: https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/girl-5-traumatised-sick-after-19252999 Spoiler I don't know who's really to blame over that one: The carer/parent responsible for the child choosing to photograph the tot's obviously harrowing predicament as opposed to cleaning her up. The 'newspaper' for printing them.
The real Watford Observer died a death many years ago. Real local journalism. Unfortunately the whole concept is under immense pressure. It's all about maximizing revenue now from groups like Newsquest. The rulings in Australia regarding the local press there should be of use here in trying to resurrect it.
Local papers can't keep up with local social media now. Something like Nextdoor needs to up its game by charging a moderate fee say £2 a month and to pay for decent local news stories.
