{"id":11163,"date":"2012-10-17T12:13:54","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T19:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/?p=11163"},"modified":"2012-10-17T12:16:25","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T19:16:25","slug":"get-riehl-r-i-p-nct-hello-big-brother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/?p=11163","title":{"rendered":"Get Riehl: R.I.P. NCT, Hello Big Brother"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ut<\/a>Yesterday afternoon I went to the North County Times<\/a><\/em><\/strong> online to ask for a vacation hold for a couple of days while we\u2019re out of town. The website no longer recognized me as a subscriber, so I had to resubmit my street and email addresses.<\/p>\n

This morning I got an email in reply, thanking me for \u201csubscribing to U-T San Diego\u2019s<\/em> digital only edition. We know you have several options in how you receive your news and are glad you chose us.\u201d It was signed \u201cPapa Doug Manchester.\u201d<\/p>\n

That reply and the death of the only other choice of a daily newspaper in North County sealed my decision to extend that vacation hold request to forever.<\/p>\n

The first three days of the North County Times<\/em> under Manchester\u2019s ownership reveals its new brand: just an added section to U-T San Diego<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, gratuitously carrying the familiar blue NCT masthead (adding \u201cU-T\u201d to it) dishonestly designed to reassure North Countians they haven\u2019t lost their daily newspaper.If it\u2019s not dead, it\u2019s been taken off life support. Don\u2019t expect to see that blue masthead very much longer. The new North County Times<\/em> has shrunk to sixteen pages, but only five to seven local stories (ads and public notices fill the rest). Those five to seven pages carry a laughably titled \u201cOpinion\u201d section, gossipy city crime reports, a half page of comics and a half page of sports.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Opinion section filled half a page. There\u2019s no local editorial. In its place is an oversized Mallard Fillmore cartoon of a guy wearing a baseball cap wishing the president were unemployed like him.<\/p>\n

There are three letters to the editor that made it to the Opinion section, two of which bash President Obama. Tuesday\u2019s paper carried six letters, Monday\u2019s ten.<\/p>\n

Before the North County Times<\/em> became a U-T San Diego<\/em> insert, its editorial pages were alive with public discourse. Letters to the editor filled an entire page, a page and a half in election years. Liberals and conservatives, atheists and evangelicals waged lively daily debates. Doonesbury cartoons appeared next to Mallard Fillmore. Community columnists appeared daily on the Opinion Page, representing views ranging from conservative to progressive.<\/p>\n

When asked in a KPBS interview after he bought the paper, Manchester said he couldn\u2019t promise an independent editorial board for his version of the North County Times<\/em>. That became clear this morning, when U-T San Diego\u2019s<\/em> Editorial appeared in the North County Times online edition, carrying the headline, \u201cDebate: Romney shows he\u2019s up to the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opinions of North County residents are apparently unwelcome in their new U-T San Diego<\/em> insert.<\/p>\n

Full disclosure: I enjoyed writing a bi-weekly column for the NCT for nine years. I\u2019m certain my views did not always reflect the views of the paper\u2019s editorial page editors. They\u2019ve told me so. Other community columnists expressed views far apart from my own.<\/p>\n

Those days are gone now. And it should come as no surprise. Manchester has not been hesitant to declare his goal as a newspaper owner is not to produce quality journalism as a service to the public. It\u2019s to promote a conservative agenda and be a booster of business and pro sports in San Diego County.<\/p>\n

One reason the budding media mogul may have taken a special interest in us northerners is that San Diego County is turning blue. But it gets redder as you head north. The County Registrar of Voters\u2019 latest report<\/a><\/strong> shows there are now 3,881 more Democrats than Republicans registered to vote in San Diego County. In the City of San Diego alone 40 percent of voters are Democrats, compared to 28 percent Republicans.<\/p>\n

But as you move north the cities turn red. In Carlsbad Republicans outnumber Demos by 43 percent to 28 percent. In Escondido it\u2019s the same. In San Marcos Republicans are in the majority by 42 percent to 29 percent. In Poway it\u2019s 47 percent to 25 percent. In Oceanside Republicans edge Demos, 39 percent to 32 percent.<\/p>\n

So Manchester is likely to find friends up here. That\u2019s important, not only to his ego, but to the pocketbook of a developer, disguised as a newspaper publisher, in search of political favors.<\/p>\n

Former editor of the North County Times<\/em>, Kent Davy<\/strong>, told a KPBS interviewer his mission for the NCT was to be a mirror of the community. Manchester\u2019s mission for the U-T San Diego North County Insert is to be a mirror of himself.<\/p>\n

Richard Riehl writes from LaCosta. Contact him at <\/em>richard_riehl@yahoo.com<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday afternoon I went to the North County Times online to ask for a vacation hold for a couple of days while we\u2019re out of town. The website no longer recognized me as a subscriber, so I had to resubmit my street and email addresses. This morning I got an email in reply, thanking me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11163"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11167,"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11163\/revisions\/11167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}