News Media
Skipper Jumps Ship
July 9, 2006 
Boise’s daily newspaper remains in disarray and now even the latest publisher, Mike Petrak, has bailed out.
They had three owners in less than a year and changed the format to compete with YAHOO web sites. With top editors on well deserved vacations, those who read the local paper are treated to reruns of two year old stories, no local follow up on national stories, mix ups on which “target editions” get what stories, and young reporters who don’t know Boise from Garden City.
We noticed Wayne Hoffman”s front page puff piece last week about official Idaho birds, horse, flowers etc. This week Hoffman, the P.R. guy for the Idaho Department of Agriculture, is featured on the editorial page carrying the water for Republicans. If they like his work so much, they should have offered him a good wage to stay. But then again, they don’t have to pay him at all now.
Like car dealer rebates, the local paper is giving itself away to entice subscribers otherwise unwilling to sign up. One of the prime motivations for the GUARDIAN was the lack of intelligent and timely coverage of Boise news. We figured if we could be a little “in your face” the locals would jump on good stories. We still hold out hope. Chartering a plane for aerial shots of the explosion in New Plymouth was a nice touch.
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Jul 10, 2006, 12:25 am
For the record, they didn’t fly the new plymouth fire until they saw aerials on a local tv website (the one that’s actually updated).
petrak was a good guy — his demise is bad for the statesman, and bad for boise news coverage.
He was fired, by the way folks — the resgination was just a happy face paste on the story.
Jul 11, 2006, 4:11 pm
Note to Petrak….
“run Forrest, run!!!!”
Jul 12, 2006, 3:18 pm
Interesting that Wayne Hoffman has disrobed from his invisible suit of journalistic integrity he donned as a reporter for the local daily and revealed what he truly is, a shill. He wrote some seriously unflattering pieces on Democrats during campaigns in previous Idaho races when he operated as a political reporter for the local rag.
Yet folks continue to write letters to the editor labelling the Statesman as liberal. The unanswered question is whether he was operating under Republican direction at the time or was just trying to get into their good graces in exchange for the job he now has. Considering the Guardian’s point that he still writes for the Statesman on the government’s dime, the question is probably moot. The current arrangement is more honest for Mr. Hoffman but why are we the taxpayers subsidizing the Statesman?