A quick post about your comments

Thanks for the shout-out!!! Its nice to know that you’re reading the comments and giving them some thought. I look forward to seeing the end result.

1) Eliminate “Action Line”. Reasons should be self evident.

2) More local content. If I want to know what’s happening in national/world news, I’ll read a national or world news source. Don’t try to be everything to everyone.

3) New content every day. Half of the content on the website is days or weeks old. It should be changing every day. This is the Internet. No excuses.

Sincerely,
Jesse Schachter

I’d like to add my input to the changes in the Sunday comics:

I would like to see the following comics returned to the printed page:
Foxtrot
Adam @ Home
Overboard

I do not read the following comics:
Piranha Club
Pearls Before Swine
Secret Asian Man (although I suspect you’ll keep this one to show the paper;’s ethnic diversity)
Cathy
Get Fuzzy
Brewster Rocket
Non Sequitur

That’s my input. I’d like to add that I hope the Mercury News continues to print a newspaper. I enjoy reading the paper every morning at breakfast before I go to work. If you go to an on-line-only format, I cannot see myself eating in front of a computer screen.

1. I think the front page should be dedicated to NEWS. I don’t want to read in front page about a couple that traveled on a motorcycle across America or new citizens (repeat). These items belong to “The Valley”.

2. News should be objective and not always favor the underdog

3. I prefer to have movie reviews in Eye as before

4. I think having comics in the Art&Entertainment or SVLife sections makes sense

5. I love the Food section

I’m getting quite tired of all these changes and cuts to the Mercury News. Yes, I understand that you’re trying to cut costs, save paper, help the environment, go green, etc.. But you keep telling us to go online and everything will be there. If everything is online and it’s free, then why do I bother paying for a paper?

The changes that have been made to the Mercury News have made the paper become very disorganized. Puzzles in the classified section? Comics in the midst of the Eye? Who thought of these and how come no one asked me what I, the consumer, thought of it? Entertainment should all be on one page. I need to search around every morning to see where the comics are. Was it in The Valley on Tuesdays or SV Life? Hey, maybe they decided to mix it in with the obituaries today.

The biggest bombshell of all, a cut on the Sunday Comics. I must say, I especially liked the notice about the cut: We’re trying to save paper so we’re going to cut two pages out of the comics section and use four pages to print the notice. These comics were the highlight of my weekend. But now, a bunch of my favorites are gone. How could you cut FoxTrot? It was THE Silicon Valley comic. It was sad enough that the author decided to stop writing daily comics, but now, you’re cutting his Sunday comics which means we don’t get any FoxTrot.

A suggestion on how you could save paper is cutting the weekly TV schedule guide. You already print the TV schedule daily. It was actually more convenient to keep around when it was smaller. And it was also more interesting then with “Best Bets” for each night. Now it has become a big so-called booklet filled strictly of TV schedule grids. I usually end up throwing it away in less than a day.

As much as I support the push to save the environment, we’re paying to get the paper for a reason. If you make changes, at least ask the opinion of the readers.

As for the paper version, stop moving things around! For a few days, I thought someone at work removed the A&E section and didn’t realize my comics were in the local or Eye section! Make up your mind and stick with it! As for the on-line version, get rid of the required log-in screen if I want to read an article. This is so out-dated, and I will just go to another website to read the article.

I agree with Linda Clements and ELC the recent changes to the paper are HORRIBLE. Since the “take over” or as you might remember it the sale of the Mercury News it has been one change after another. I am wondering why you even bother to print a Sunday edition of the paper it seems like just something to wrap the adds in. The perspective is gone, Parade was traded for USA Weekend(which looks like a rite aide add and has about as much content)the TV guide is so large it is more of a nusence than the smaller more manageable version we used to get and now this week the smaller comics section, who wants to read the Sunday comics online? And this is not to mention how inconvenient the changes to the daily paper are, I also have to play hunt and search for the comics and the puzzles are so buried I completely forget about them.

I think I will also be rethinking the Mercury News why pay for it when I am being directed to see my favorite sections online.

I’m not at all happy with some of the recent changes made in the Merc-News. The entire pace of my day has been upset by the moving of the puzzle page. I look forward to my morning coffee, reading the paper, doing the puzzles at leisure and reading the comics.

And deleting two pages of comics from the Sunday paper?!?! To “save paper”!!!? If I wanted to do on-line comics, shouldn’t I just cancel my 7 day home deliver of the paper? Not everyone has a home computer–and even those that do, like me, enjoy reading a newspaper.

I didn’t realize how much I miss the Sunday Parade magazine until I began comparing the Merc with the SF Chronicle.
(Yes, that’s how far my discontent has grown with these changes. After over 30 years as a loyal subscriber.) And the Sunday Chronicle has a nice unwieldy weekly TV guide as compared to the Merc’s
bulky guide.

My husband and I dropped the Merc after many years.
Merc lost us because it dropped:
1. Perspective
2. chopped the comics
3. Brad Kava and many other journalists were “dumped”
4. Local music and theatre coverage stinks
5. Ads do not belong on the Front Page!
We have gone over to SF Chronicle. Better writing, opinions and more.

Two Suggestions:

1. On Editorial Page, provide a Point-Counterpoint column every day on the issues, so that more people’s opinions are represented. This would be important on national issues like Iraq, global warming, health care, government spending, taxation, etc. It would also be important for open discussion of state and local issues like blocking pornography in the public libraries, housing density issues, park lands and sanctuary city status.

2. Eliminate or substantially reduce “analysis” in the news section of the newspaper. Provide the people the facts, and let them make up their minds.

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I’d like to see the Merc cover more San Mateo County news. Yes, I know, I know… your “sister papers” the Daily News & SMCT are up there and have first dibs on that news, but I really think the Merc should be covering it too. San Mateo County is for some reason just outside both the Chronicle’s & Merc’s coverage areas and we’re like some lost readership wasteland…missing out on our stories being covered by hard-hitting news reporters.

The idea that people will get news from the newspaper is passe. We are bombarded with news - instanteously, live, online, on TV and radio - 24/7. By the time the “news” hits the newspaper, it’s too old to be news. So why do I read the newspaper? For entertainment and for local information that I won’t see on TV. Ocassionally, the “in-depth” coverage is interesting, especially if it is focused on local events or people. But for serious journalism on national and global issues, I depend on magazine coverage. As for the daily newspaper, the sections I go to are the comics, the puzzles, the columns, the editorials, usually in that order. I don’t read the newspaper for an intellectual challenge; I read it for a little R&R with morning coffee or evening glass of wine.

Well, cutting my favorite comics was the last straw. I canceled my Mercury News subscription last week. Hopefully, the San Francisco Chronicle will have more to offer me.