Sound Off

Batch Data Processor | Saturday, Jul 21 2007 5:05 PM

Last Updated: Saturday, Jul 21 2007 5:09 PM

Reader: Your new weather format is terrible. You've taken Bear Valley Springs and Tehachapi out of Kern cities. The population in Tehachapi is growing by leaps and bounds and is much more populated than Glennville or some of these other cities -- California City, Kernville, Lebec, Maricopa.

What's more populated? We need to get this back on your Kern list in the paper. I know Tehachapi is over on your map but I want to see it listed where it was before and Bear Valley Springs. You've really screwed up this paper. I know you're trying to save money. You took the TV Guide out and I understand that that saves you $400,000 per year. Take some of your Saturday things out like the anniversaries and the birthday section. Take a poll. You're going to lose subscribers. I've been a subscriber for 40 some odd years and I'm about to quit. I can always go to the LA Times.

-- Jim Barnett

Jenner: Bear Valley Springs is in the list and Tehachapi is on the map. The list is for the cities that don't fit on the map.

Reader:The weather page has been ruined. Take a good look at it. Look at that map.

Worthless.

-- Gladys Moore

Reader:Just calling to tell you that I'm not happy with your weather page. I loved the other one. It could have been expanded. This other one I can hardly find.

Also, I have a son in Idaho and I don't ever get to see the Boise weather or anything. It's just not as good as the other one.

I'm not happy.

-- Evelyn Fabbri

Jenner: We've restored Boise to the list of national cities.

Reader: I am writing to voice my opinion on your recent change to the weather page.

I do not like it.

It is very hard to read.

I miss the color and the old location, where it was easy to find and read.

You made it too small and without the color it is hard to decipher what you are trying to show.

It just does not seem to me to be the right page to cut back on.

PLEASE go back to the old way.

Sincerely,

-- Brad and Sharon Higbee

Reader: LEAVE THE NEWSPAPER ALONE! The latest "improvement" of moving the weather page to Page A2 has produced a solid black national temperature map. Quit trying to improve the newspaper by adding, subtracting and moving.

Improve the newspaper's content by getting the facts right and using correct English. It also might help if you eliminated all the spell checkers and made writers and editors responsible for proofreading their stories for correct English usage and spelling. If we can't figure out what's on TV at least make the newspaper worth reading.

-- Ellen Svendsen

Reader: The weather page -- once you changed it from the colored page to the black and white everything is fine except for the diagram of the map of the U.S. with the gradations of temperature running from 10 degrees to 100 degrees. If you look at that map in the black-and-white mode, it looks like the U.S. is 90 degrees all across from west to east and north to south.

When it was in color at least we were able to tell where the hot points were and where the cooler points were. The rest of page is good, but that one section -- the map of the U.S. -- is just monochromatic.

-- Al Christensen

Jenner: We agree that the national map didn't work in that format.We replaced it with a map that has more information and is more readable.

Reader:I do not understand your philosophy. You take items in your newspaper which are satisfactory and supposedly change them for the better, but they turn out to be worse.

The last time you changed the weather page you eliminated the weather for several interesting cities and now you have eliminated more cities. If this keeps up there will not be any cities listed!

The map supposedly showing the temperature throughout the United States is a joke! The entire map has been one shade every day. It is useless.

The former map showing where rain, snow, etc. were located was much more useful and informative.

On the TV Guide page the listing for TV Land has not been correct since you changed the format!

I could go on and on, but what is the use? You have your policies without regard to the reader!

-- Gerald E. Peterson

Reader: I read last Sunday's article about the "man" who skinned and ate a snake alive. I think I would have rather watched that "man" be skinned and eaten alive than an animal who had no choice in his own grisly death.

Why you would even give him that amount of publicity is beyond me, as that is exactly what he wanted.

Perhaps a better choice of articles would be how much good rattlesnakes do in the wild, ridding us naturally of varmints and letting "Mother Nature" do what she does best.

Next time why not take the high road rather than give creeps just what they want.

Let us hope that maybe the next story will be "man seriously suffering from rattlesnake bite, not expected to live." Now you are reporting better news!

Sincerely,

-- I. Carrington

Jenner: I'm glad you and other readers were outraged by the man's behavior. I agree, it was outrageous.

It was clear to editors here that this story was newsworthy. I never saw it as playing into the hands of the man who killed the snake.

He wanted a spot on a TV show. The fact that he wouldn't offer his name suggests to me that he probably wasn't doing it to get ink in our paper.

There are some things we do not report as news stories. Bomb threats. Threatened lawsuits. Most suicides.

But when stunts like this are undertaken in hopes of landing a spot on a television show, I think it says something not just about this individual, but our society. I think the community needs to know about this kind of behavior.

To me, that's taking the high road.

Reader:I am not sure how it was decided that people were in too much of a hurry to read the local section on Monday -- and no other day of the week. If this was done for financial reasons, then I would appreciate the truth.

I take The Californian because I enjoy reading the printed word. If I want a quick digest then I listen to the radio in the morning or watch TV news.

-- Helen Venosdel

Jenner: We truly were driven more by a desire to save readers time than to save ourselves money. We based our decision on market research that shows us that our busy readers are feeling "time starved," and that they have less time to spend with the paper on Mondays.

Despite the changes we made, I don't believe we're short-changing our Monday readers. Believe me, our smallest Monday paper contains many, many times the amount of news and information than any radio or TV newscast -- of any length -- has to offer.

Reader: I am a 66-year-old grandmother of 16, great-grandmother of nine and have been riding for 30 years. It may come as a shock to you, but some women riders ride OTHER makes of motorcycles.

I am very disappointed in your article, as it furthers the "mind-set" that Harley is the only bike out there. Actually they are the only ones that make that obnoxious noise. I have not, nor will I ever, ride one.

But I will continue to ride MY motorcycle.

-- Jeannie Edwards

Jenner: I'm not shocked to hear that women ride motorcycles other than Harleys. But I am a little surprised that someone would take offense at such a positive presentation about women and motorcycle riding.