howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Andy B
- Location: dover
- Registered: 10 Nov 2012
- Posts: 1,737
I still get the Dover express for my mum whos in her 80s now and like many elderly she doesnt do online and doesnt wish to.The newspaper is all she knows but when i look in it theres little news anymore and quite abit which isnt always local.Just seems to be taken up with advertising features etc.Doesnt seem worth the money anymore.
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,823
Lots of advertising in both papers
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Sue Nicholas- Location: river
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 6,017
Rubbish .
Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,848
The Dover Express is not a patch on what it used to be when we had a number of local reporters and the excellent Dubris column (I wonder where they got all their info from?
). In fact the only stuff worth reading is the occasional half page from non-journalists such as Gareth Doodes the Head of Dover College.
East Kent Mercury still hanging on in there and actually doing some decent local coverage though occasionally plumbing the depths with a full page on that octogenarian local clergyman and his young Romanian 'husband' and their latest appearance on Jeremy Kyle. Apparently it sells papers.
"Shall we go, you and I, while we can? Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds"
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Captain Haddock wrote:The Dover Express is not a patch on what it used to be when we had a number of local reporters and the excellent Dubris column (I wonder where they got all their info from?
). In fact the only stuff worth reading is the occasional half page from non-journalists such as Gareth Doodes the Head of Dover College.
East Kent Mercury still hanging on in there and actually doing some decent local coverage though occasionally plumbing the depths with a full page on that octogenarian local clergyman and his young Romanian 'husband' and their latest appearance on Jeremy Kyle. Apparently it sells papers.
There are no scribes covering Dover and Folkestone only advertising staff. Any local news is sent in by voluntary organisations or the likes of Mr Doodes and someone from an office in Kent then adds it to the paper, I would think this is the same all over the county. The Mercury still has Sam Lennon when he is fit.
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,693
I am curious,
what are you (all of you) looking for from a local paper?
What would you pay for it?
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,782
I have not bought a local paper for years when they started to be full of obvious adverts and paid for business adverts disguised as articles. Now I get my local news via the internet within a few hours or next day rather than a week later.
They might tempt me back if it was full of good local news and information (but I doubt it) maybe a good puzzle page rather than the trivial dross I read on their FB pages.
Andy B and howard mcsweeney1 like this
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Reginald Barrington
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 17 Dec 2014
- Posts: 3,225
Personally I would be interested in:-
•Coverage of town and district council meetings,
•Port news, comings and goings like this sites associated sea news.
•Regular progress reports on local developments, like the excellent updates Patrick provides here,
•More than just local football coverage (I know dover ladies darts reports where submitted weekly and
more often than not were NOT included, but a half page headshot of the winning goal scorer found
space),they stopped bothering after a couple of years!
•Significantly less cut and paste stories from Lydd, Romney, ramsgate etc! unless they have some
direct link or correlation to dover.
As the express stands today there might be a couple of local stories (in a good week) 3,4,5 pages of football news and the same old faces on the letters page and of course the obits. to see who you've outlived,
• some imaginative story series: perhaps dover wartime heroes, home and away,
there is some excellent work done by Lorraine sencicle and the dover society on dover history and
development, the history of dovers pubs, the development of dovers industry and port the list is long for such stories.
howard mcsweeney1 and Judith Roberts like this
Arte et Marte
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Without reporters they cannot report, only publish something sent in. DDC do put out frequent press releases but DTC just post the odd uninteresting thing on their website that only me and a few others bother to read. The outgoing proprietor of the newsagent/convenience store said before he left that hardly anyone under 50 bought a daily newspaper and nobody under 70 bought a local one, Andy's mum will confirm.
Reginald Barrington likes this
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,823
It is a shame
Started with 2 informative papers to today
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Andy B- Location: dover
- Registered: 10 Nov 2012
- Posts: 1,737
From when i used to buy it back in the early 80s,the Express was a pretty good paper,with plenty of local news stories from Dover,not Canterbury or Thanet but what was going on in our town.Then i think the start of the decline of the paper was when the homefinder supplement came along which started off with just a few pages but in the end took up almost a third of the papers content and along with all the other ads in it didnt make very interesting reading anymore.
Ross Miller- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,693
That's very helpful
Sadly advertising pays for papers these days, as the cover price probably only covers the print cost if you are lucky.
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
