Newspaper:A publication that contains current news, editorials, feature articles, and advertisements.

That’s what the American Heritage Dictionary says a newspaper is. Let’s look and see what the Daily Egyptian has for us.

Daily Egyptian:A publication that contains current news (Halloween. Check! Drinking age. Check! Editorials, still have them but usually they are from the L.A. Times, Washington Post, etc. Feature articles, sure, if you want to hear about Halloween again. Meanwhile, the kidnapping of a local eight-year old gets six whole paragraphs. The Daily Egyptian is a virtual paragon of advertising.

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Let’s see… What else does a newspaper usually have? Sports? Sure. The DE has got sports. But if you want national sports coverage, you’ll have to go somewhere else. They did have standings, you remember that little box that had about two or three sports crunched into a corner, but I guess they needed the space for a Papa Johns ad.

Weather? I think the DE has it. I wouldn’t know, I never check that little corner on the front page. I just breeze past the front page in search of a great deal on pizza beer. It’s a good thing they have those ads or else I’d be lost.

So I admit Carbondale isn’t a gold mine of news like St. Louis or Chicago but come on. There must be something somewhere. I seem to remember a section last year that used to focus on local heroes or local business entrepreneurs. How about an article about the new airport security measures? There are a lot of pilots who attend this school who might want to know more about that. There are also people who drive to St. Louis to fly wherever or pick up friends who probably would want to know how much longer it’s going to take to get where they are going.

So they don’t give the Pulitzer to college newspapers but why not try to live up to the honor? The DE staff may be working in the real world soon. Do you guys want to work your way up from the newsroom or from the advertising department?