Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 4 · column 4 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
consistently received my paper on Tuesday instead of Thursday - five days later than everyone else who has a Washington, Va. address. The Post Office says it’s the newspaper’s problem; the newspaper says it’s the Post Office’s problem. I suspect the problem is in how the papers are sorted for bulk mailing. In any case, it should not be the subscriber’s responsibility to trace problems of this sort.
Grammatical errors are distracting. A frequently-recurring one is hyphenation after words ending in “ly,” as I have done in this sentence. Particularly annoying are well-intentioned editorial changes to letters written to the editor; I know of one instance where the deletion of a comma changed' the writer’s intended meaning completely. This seems like nit-picking, but I can’t think of anything more important in a community paper than remaining faithful to a writer’s original message.
The “Lifestyle” section is OK but not really necessary. Much of what we have come to expect in this section, such as an announcement of a community event, is often tucked away in the first section, or is repeated in both sections.
Publicity of community events is usually excellent. It is much appreciated. Success of these events depends on good publicity and proper timing.
Color photos on the front page are fine when there is a special photo or event, but it seems there is a quota that has to be met. The result is occasionally some poor photos, presumably because somebody feels compelled to publish a color photo or two every week.
The “political” cartoons are tolerable, but leave Rappahannock Roger at home.
I would like to see more news of what’s happening in surrounding counties. For example, there is a long ongoing furious controversy over the policies of the National Park Service in Madison County. Even though I don’t agree with all of their policies, I am thankful that in Rappahannock, our relationship with our neighboring park is very different. The angry debates in Madison County could easily affect us, and coverage of this issue would be appropriate in our newspaper, along with many other things that are happening in other surrounding counties.
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