LFP Hits New Lows
 

Looks like the new ownership isn't going to do anything improve the failing quality or reputation of the Free Press.

1) I noticed today that they are now inserting advertising as news stories. The ads use the same font & page formatting, and are inserted into the "news" portion of their web site. The only way one can tell it's an ad is where it would be labeled as "opinion" or "editorial", it's labeled as "sponsored" - they don't even come out and tell you straight that it's advertising.

http://www.lfpress.com/2015/05/14/thomps...tep-product-for-protecting-exterior-wood

I can hardly wait for political parties to start using this.

2) This was actually an article in their front page today:

"Grandmother, 102, loses dentures while blowing out bday candles"

The Freep really has become a garbage publication. I wouldn't pay a penny for it.

I read a great quote today in an article about Elon Musk, lamenting the decline of such things:

“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.””

It's not just the free press, print media is following this trend.

By 2020 who knows if the LFP will still be around in paper form.

Isn't it a Quebecor-owned paper, which bought out the equally rubbishy Sun Media (beloved by Ford Nation)? Nothing they publish is not worth much more than (used) toilet paper.

Quebecor was bought out by Postmedia, owners of the National Post, Ottawa Citizen and Windsor Star.

I've stopped buying the Free Press. I stopped buying it after they published a pro-CFIB (Canadian Federation of Independent Business) article attacking civil servants and their wage and benefit packages.

I suspect that the LFP felt they had to publish such a scurrilous article in order to keep CFIB members taking out ads in the paper.

The quality of reportage and content in the LFP has declined to such a low level that even real bird cage liner is far more useful. Advertising and mostly worthless infotainment is all that it provides anymore.

^yep. basically. It is occasionally good for dirt on municipal asswipes like Stephen Orser (and the rest of the Fontana-8) or the drunken tomfoolery of Timothy de-Cicco-Worst. Beyond that: used toilet paper.

The Freep is on the case once more with critical information that you NEED to know:

"Stolen vehicle found in Blandford-Blenheim

The Oxford OPP found a stolen vehicle by accident in Blandford-Blenheim Township on Tuesday. Just after midnight on June 9, OPP officers stopped on Hwy. 401 east of Oxford Rd. 29 to help a man whose car appeared to have broken down. Officers then realized the vehicle was reported stolen in Ottawa. A 41-year-old man, of no fixed address, was charged with possession of stolen property over $5,000."

This was their 4th highest story on their front page in terms of priority, following right after the tornado warning (again more crack investigative journalism: the reporter had to dig hard and find the Environment Canada webpage). That was also the entire article: 3 sentences.

Why the hell would anybody want to pay for this?

It’s funny you post this, because I was seething at the Free Press this morning when I read a news story (not an article, mind) about someone being hit by a motorist while crossing the road. There were four sentences. The Free Press assumes we care, but not enough to want more than four sentences? I love this:

'The man was heading north across Dundas just after 7 p.m. Tuesday, when a vehicle that had been heading north on Clarke turned west onto Dundas and struck him.

"He turned and struck the pedestrian," said Const. Ken Steeves…'

That quote they chose is one hell of a value-add. Who had the right-of-way? Who cares. Were there witnesses? That requires effort. This is only a story because those geniuses heard that reporters cover traffic accidents. They don’t know what that might actually entail.

I do admit that I haven’t had a copy of the print Free Press in a while, so I concede that it might have very well-researched features and sensible op-eds in it that I don’t have the opportunity to see while skimming the online edition.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but comments are no longer showing on their online articles.

I think this is actually a win

Just looking to confirm what you said, and you are correct:

http://www.lfpress.com/2015/09/25/a-note-to-online-readers-of-the-london-free-press

Ah thanks for that, article was submitted after I made my post here.

Scum of the earth, most LFP commenters are. While some may say its a attack on free speech, I am happy they stopped allowing comments.

Thank fuck... I stopped using the site due in large part to the comments...

AM980 is pretty solid of a site too

It would in general seem that the days of unmoderated internet posting is drawing to a close. It was probably inevitable: the innerweb is about 20 years old (for the general public), and given time such forums and formats will tend to draw the ignorant, fermented rage of the unwashed masses. Remember, the most opinionated tend to be less knowledgeable and more dogmatic. They tend not to have analytical skills or the ability to think outside of the box. They tend to see conspiracy in all things. They tend to believe they know all of the "truths" and and have all of the solutions, when in reality their understanding of things are superficial and their "solutions" farcical.

They typically do not to belong to creative or progressive groups or have occupations that are either intellectual or require working with others, because the other 80% of the population wants nothing to do with them and shuts them out. As such, they have few outlets to vent their angry, misinformed frustrations - and so are drawn to what available outlets there are, such as unmoderated comments/chat rooms, right-wing conspiracy web sites, and talk radio. In the 'States they join the Tea Party and currently are creaming their jeans over Trump.

The world is slowly but surely leaving them behind, making them both more angry and more obsolescent. In another 10 years many will have passed on or become too old to be much of a force.

I'll start then. My name is Ksteven (K is silent?), I am 84, and classified as a meat Popsicle.

Good move by the Free Press and other Sun papers. Sometimes there would be one or two good, well thought out comments on an article, but most of the comments fit one of the following categories:

- Blaming unions for everything
- Blaming Kathleen Wynne
- Blaming Stephen Harper
- Dismissing a comment for being from a "liberal" or a "CON" (never a "conservative") no matter how intelligent or well thought out the comment is
- Blaming immigrants/refugees/TFWs for everything
- Blaming organized religion for everything (particularly Christians and Muslims)
- General paranoia and conspiracy theories (particularly relating to 9/11)
- Spam ("That's a great comment but let me tell you about how I make $9000 every day sitting on my ass surfing the Internet while raising 7 children")
- Blaming all students at Western or Fanshawe
- General infighting between regulars, completely off topic from the article at hand

Additionally, *any* article that mentioned a Catholic school was always filled with a ton of comments about the need to defund Catholic schools, no matter how off topic it was.

News stories will still get posted to Facebook and Twitter, and people can still comment there. It's much harder to hide behind a cloak of anonymity on Facebook.

As an advertising manager I have an issue with my clients' ads appearing alongside the garbage comments. Why? People get tired of the comments and start avoiding the website, so the ads are less likely to get exposed.

I think that CBC got online commenting right very early on when they started allowing comments 7-8 years ago. They moderated every single comment, and anything off-topic, spammy, or inflammatory wasn't posted, or was often deleted if reported. They do a lot less moderation nowadays but the quality of the discussion there is definitely much better than what passed on the London Free Press, Toronto Sun, National Post, and other sites (all of whom use Disqus).

good post. I agree completely.

I wonder where Peter Easton (a noted anti-food truck activist) is going to go now. Sometimes I thought his full time job was commenting on LFP stories.

He should try and get a radio talk show. He's got enough opinions to have show topics daily for the next 25 years.

Finally!

Looks like CTV London still has comments. Probably only a matter of time before crazy commenters move here and CTV shuts them down too.

Example:
http://london.ctvnews.ca/byron-man-creates-election-sign-controversy-1.2606436

The one difference is that they seem to require a Facebook login to post a comment and it goes under your Facebook name. Though some people use a fake name on Facebook, it's a lot harder to be anonymous there.