Maine's breaking (old) news

Opinion/Ted Cohen/Patch.com

If Maine's largest newspaper could get any more incompetent, then that would be "breaking news."

Consider: The Portland Press Herald led its March 29 website with a huge preview of a hockey game that happened March 28.

Can it get any more embarrassing?

The answer would be no.

To wit, besides previewing a game from the day before, the stellar staff doesn't even tell readers who won. (To find the game's results readers would have to make their way to the sports section.)

Can't make it up folks

The suits at the National Trust for Local News, which has been struggling mightily since it bought a string of Maine newspapers in 2023, apparently have a business model based on this premise: bring readers the latest news only when it’s convenient for them.

And maybe not even then.

The real question is, are there any editors on duty?

The paper, which recently announced that due to budget problems it's abolishing 50 jobs, failed to include any editor layoffs in that list.

The paper sure has plenty to pick from - it has an executive editor, a managing editor and several assistant editors on its payroll.

How many supervising editors does it take to put out the latest news on a college hockey game vs. lazily publishing yesterday's stale news?

Rather than printing the results of a game from the day before between the University of Maine and Penn State, the paper ran a thumb-sucking feature on Maine's hockey fanatics:

But hey, at least the paper paired that piece with a preview of a game that was already played:

That’s some good timely news, eh?

To find the results of the game readers would have to navigate to the sports section - which actually makes this worse.

In other words, the editors actually know the game's outcome but no one says to themselves “Hey, maybe we should change the big outdated package we have on the homepage?”

And another question: who decided that a preview of a college hockey game was the biggest story around deserving dominant display on the homepage?

Any editors on duty?