What's Happened, What's Happening To The Gazette?

A headline and front page story in the Martinez News-Gazette today, March 19, finally got me off my duff. Headline: "Council meeting to focus on Alhambra Highlands."

I defy anyone to read the first paragraph of the report and understand what the unnamed writer is trying to convey. Does the writer herself/himself understand?

Treating readers to bureaucratic gobbly-gook, the frontpage story reports an upcoming Wednesday night Martinez City Council hearing "to consider a resolution exempting the project [also unnamed, but presumably the "Alhambra Highlands" project mentioned in the heading] from the California Environmental Equality Act (CEQA) for the purposes of denial, and deny, an amendment to the general plan and zoning map regarding the Alhambra Highlands property."

Here, dear writer, take a breath and tell us about the project, and about the amendment to the general plan and zoning map to be denied? Do you know? Or, are you just picking and choosing passages from a City staff report without understanding what's going on?

It gets worse. The next paragraph has nothing to do with the first, and certainly not with the headline. It informs us as follows:

"Included is a Planned Unit Development, and PUD plan and vesting tentative map for development of up to 80 attached single-family homes and two single-family homes on a 6.83 acre site located at 370 Muir Station Road."

Of course the second paragraph, quoted in its entirety here, has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with Alhambra Highlands.  Does the writer know this? Does the editor of the paper? Does the editor edit the paper?

Does the owner/publisher of the paper know what has become of his paper?

Here's some of what it has become:

1) National commentators discussing national issues have replaced all but a very few local voices explaining and commenting on local issues.

2) Lots of national and regional filler stories have replaced coverage of local news, not to mention the appearance of a surfeit of general interest movie reviews and sports events covered much better in the regional and national press.

3) Reporters and an editor with no knowledge of the community they're writing about or of the issues of importance to it have, with no explanation, replaced reporters and an editor with real knowledge of and sensitivity to the community and the issues of importance to it.

4) A vibrant forum of local writers (letters and columns) has disappeared.

5) An overdose of photos has replaced intelligently written news stories and commentary.

Readers of Patch, stand up! Let's hear it for the old Gazette, of just six or eight months ago.

Maybe we can convince David Payne to make a change, but please keep Mike Alford, the only improvement in local color and commentary I can think of.