Our “sensational” Chronicle ! Part 2

INTRODUCTION: The Chronicle newspaper and its owner-operating company, Australian Provincial Newspapers, have been remarkably free of publicly available critical analysis.

That is what I am now attempting at age 80, myself a career journalist of wide experience.

I would be extraordinarily distressed should this personal analysis of The Chronicle’s editorial deterioration over the last years be interpreted as a criticism of its reporters and its rank and file journalists and photographers.

They are almost without exception evidently keen and enthusiastic and clever. The photographers are an enviable asset.

However, all Editorial Department jobs are captive to APN company policy and so to an extent are those of their editors. As myself a career journalist, I am concerned that the narrow professional experience offered young journalists now by The Chronicle doesn’t prepare them for any meaningful future in the media of the future.

Last week, I described the extraordinary sensationalism that has become characteristic of the paper under the editorship of Mr Steve Etwell. I asked what impression of Toowoomba can Etwell believe his addiction to sensationalism is describing – a city of violence and lawlessness and a less than desirable place to live?