Comments about ‘Deseret News making bold move for the digital age’

I've been very disappointed with the lack of objectivity and serious journalism in the Deseret News and cancelled my subscription after many years. It sounds like the quality of the newspaper will continue to decline with fewer journalists to report the news.

Chris... I have felt the same exact way about DNews and KSL... Not only are they not conservative, but it seems they actually go out of their way to knock down conservatism. They don't even try to be fair anymore, they just seem to report with a liberal slant which is not "informing" but "forming opinion" sadly.

Firing the professional reporters and photographers assures a poor quality product even as the administrators tell people that is not so.

Deseret News plans are todays version of The Emperors New Clothes.

Thank goodness for freedom of the press!!!

If you don't like it, don't read it.

"I canceled my subscription years ago...blah, blah, blah, blah"......funny, you're still reading it.

I read lots of online newspapers and I dig this paper big time.

Rock on DN!

Indiana, you made me laugh. I agree with you that the DN has gotten way too unbalanced. But in the opposite way you believe.

Some of the editorials lately come right out of the neanderthal era. The most recent head slapper was the editorial from last week in which they bemoaned the size of the federal deficit for two or three paragraphs and then, in the next breath, called for the extension of the ush tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of the taxpayers. D'oh!

It is interesting to see opinions about the DN being too liberal for one reader and neanderthal for another. Perhaps this puts the DN somewhere in the middle, which in this era of polarization, is useful to the discussion of issues. My perception is that the DN is trying to be balanced in its approach and not add to the polarization. We are only going to make progress on our problems by collaboration. No person or party has all the answers.

I really like the renewed DN emphasis on "enterprise reporting" in the new business model, which I understand to mean articles researched more in depth. One area that I would like to see some good research done is in the area of public employee retirement and health benefits. This is reported to be a serious problem in several states, including California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey. To what extent is this an issue in Utah? Answering this question will take a good researcher some time to look at. I have looked at the most recent report (for 2009) for public employee retirement plans. One concern is the discount rate used for calculating the present value of the future plan benefits. The rate used was 7.75%, which seems much too high a discount rate to me. I don't believe a business pension plan would be allowed to use such a high discount rate. If the discount rate is too high, then this would mean that the present value of the future benefits has been understated and also that the shortfall in funding these liabilities has been understated, probably significantly understated.

I'll just agree with the first two posts since my views on this are not kosher with the publication.

I don't agree with the view, however, that if a publication is annoying two opposing points of view equally it must be balanced.

By concentrating on the left wing battle between the Statist Repubs and the Statist Dems the real battle is ignored, that between individual freedom and government control. I have assumed, and continue to believe, that the LDS Church is following its policy consistently in keeping out of politics unless a matter of basic morality is at stake. Otherwise it would be promoting the Constitution and the issues of the rights of the individual as those general authorities who have addressed it have always done.

I can understand that view, and the fact that there might not be enough readers who care about those paramount issues for it to sell newspapers, but I cannot help to disappointed, day after day, that this should be the case. Thank Heaven for this forum. Most times I can express my opinion here.

As a former journalist, I appreciate an organization with the LDS church's resources (and just as importantly, with the flexibility to absorb losses while experimenting rather than constantly being beholden to shareholder interests) taking on the important challenge of how to create a media outlet that can survive in this new generation of news consumption.

Having said that, I used to "read" the DNews and then scan the Trib. But with the DNews' reduction in staff (especially entertainment critics and political writers) and apparent utilization of church PR staff writing articles, I've shifted to "reading" the Trib and scanning the DNews.