Ribbing: PD Blows

Anyone checking out the home page of Post-Dispatch's website on Saturday morning [March 24] might have noticed something odd -- a total lack of any reference to what was easily the biggest story of the morning, the previous day's vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to impose a timetable for pulling American troops out of Iraq.

Sure, the site's lead story (as of 8 a.m.) did have to do with military matters, but it was a feel-good piece titled "Jefferson College Donates Computers to Soldiers," replete with a photo of a crew-cutted serviceman in cammies lugging PC gear from the trunk of a parked car.

The historic House vote didn't even make the Post-Dispatch site's "top headlines" list on the right-hand side of the home page. "U-M Rolla proposes name change" qualified for this lofty placement, as did "Ex-treatment center worker is accused of sex with boy" and six other stories.

However, not one of these "top headlines" happened to be the one that mattered most to the nation and the people of St. Louis, many of whom happen to have loved ones stationed in the Persian Gulf. There was no indication that a house of Congress had undertaken what the Washington Post (in its website's lead story that same morning) called "one of the toughest antiwar measures ever to pass a house of Congress during combat operations."

Regardless of one's stance on the war, there is something bizarre about such blithe ignorance on the part of our sole daily newspaper. It has been clear for quite some time that Joseph Pulitzer's journal, once among the finest daily publications in the United States, has chosen a long sleep, abdicating its role as the paper of record for the metropolitan area.

This morning's website shows, once again, that the among the greatest public services any St. Louisans could provide their community would be the purchase and overhaul of the Post-Dispatch -- or the establishment of a competing multimedia daily that actually wakes up with its eyes open to the world around it.

Mark Ribbing