Two Rags

ALBANY, N.Y. - Albany is a two newspaper town.

The Times Union is the larger and more respected publication, owned by a big newspaper chain and rich enough to sponsor the city's sports arena for the next five years. It's a paper that people in smaller markets like Worcester and Scranton aspire toward, a place where a good story will be picked up by dozens of smaller papers.

The Daily Gazette is a small family-run organization, the paper that still runs three wires a day on its front page. They don't have an editorial cartoonist, and never send a reporter to New York City for a story. The paper actually is based out of Schenectady, the twin city of Albany, but it competes for an audience.

My family gets the Gazette. Growing up I felt intensely loyal to this locally-owned underdog. Now, after time at a couple papers, I recognize that both papers have strengths and weaknesses. A good way to see the differences is to compare the lead story in this Sunday's paper, the "Sunday Centerpiece" in newspaper lingo.

Today the Times Union leads with "Meet the Clarkes" a Sunday profile on a family with seven wrestling children.

It starts great:

"BALLSTON -- Lines of cars thick with frost shroud the home behind a used-car lot. The porch light flickers on, cutting through the icy darkness. It's 3:45 a.m."

But it quickly degenerates into lazy writing. Here's the very next paragraph:

"It's just another Sunday, just another weekend wrestling tournament for the Clarke household, who are to their rugged sport what the von Trapps are to song."

The Clarkes are interesting subjects, and reporter Bryan Chu introduces dozens of excellent details that add color to the piece:

"Few would be able to stomach Michele's typical day: preparing meals for 11, doing eight to nine loads of laundry.

Everything is clockwork. It has to be."

The story loses focus long before coming to a conclusion. Chu continues generally chronologically to the end of the Clarkes day, but in so doing repeats ideas over and over: sacrifices are necessary for 11 people to live on $50,000, driving to a wrestling tournament in Long Island is a long drive.

Eighteen hundred words later, the Clarkes haven't had to answer the one question I had coming into the article: Why on Earth they think it was a good idea to have nine kids in the first place? And is wrestling really the ticket to an affordable education at a private college, as the parents claim on the article's first page? What if the children aren't good? Furthermore, do all the children really like wrestling? Wouldn't someone rather sit at home and read a book?


Meanwhile the Daily Gazette leads with "Soares getting mixed reviews as DA," a story about the lead prosecutor who's been a media favorite since helping to force out state comptroller Alan Hevesi late last year.

Bryce talks with the right people: the Albany Police Union, colleagues and predecessors, but isn't able to make the procedural story come alive in a way a Sunday centerpiece should.

"Public integrity cases are receiving much more attention than in the past, but McDermott said Soares is not overemphasizing this area."

and

"Soares said the DA's office practices a single standard of justice."

Finishing the story, the reader comes away with a nuanced understanding of a man who's generated plenty of press this week. Unfortunately, it's a story that's not easy to make it all the way through. Kind of like the Daily Gazette.