Google alerts, FB consistently scoop Reading Eagle

I often learn more news about Berks County from Google alerts and Facebook than I do from the Reading Eagle pseudo-newspaper.

Some recent examples:

Cultural sensitivity? Did you know that Ramadan has started? Other local newspapers realize the importance and help explain the holiday to non-Muslims, but not the Reading Eagle. Not that the Eagle is shy about religion – if it’s the Christian kind. Its Christmas coverage goes on ad nauseum for days, and it carries a daily Bible verse and weekly columns about local churches. But Ramadan? Meh.

Hundreds if not thousands of Muslims live in Berks, and many families worship at its two Islamic centers. If you haven’t noticed, Muslims have been in the news a lot lately, often the victims of misperception, prejudice and stigma. Often it’s the media that maintain the misperception, prejudice and stigma. Other local news organizations had stories last week. 

The Reading mayoral election? Al Walentis, not the award-winning Reading Eagle, broke the news on his blog about retailer Al Boscov providing $70,000 to Reading Mayor Vaughn Spencer for his campaign:

“It shows that the Albert Boscov money spigot is at full guzzle feeding the mayor's campaign coffers. Naturally, some might question whether one individual should have such influence in a municipal election. What might Albert Boscov be hoping for in return?” 

When the Eagle editors thought they had figured out how to spin the story without embarrassing Boscov, a major advertiser and de facto but untrained city planner, the result was pathetic.

Deportations? I didn’t see anything in the Eagle about a judge’s dramatic order June 19 to stop the deportation of a woman and her child from a Berks detention center. But other media have the fascinating story.

“A U.S. Court of Appeals judge has ordered U.S. officials to intercept a mother and her 12-year-old daughter on a plane Friday being deported to Guatemala and immediately return them to the United States.

“The 34-year-old mother, Ana, and her daughter were woken up at 3 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Friday and pulled from their rooms at a [Berks] Pennsylvania family detention center, where they had been living for over a year, said her attorney, Bridget Cambria. By 10 a.m., the two were placed on a plane flying to Panama City, where they would catch a second flight to Guatemala City.

“In a rare move that will likely draw more attention to the controversial practice of family detention, Chief Judge Theodore A. McKee of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ordered U.S. officials to stop Ana and her daughter when they arrive in Guatemala City and immediately return them to the United States."

The Reading Eagle’s journalism produced this headline about the center, which it had ignored for years: “Berks County Residential Center: 'family friendly' or 'bad'?”

Pedestrian killed? I first learned that a woman had been killed on Route 422 in Lower Heidelberg Township on Facebook. Other news media identify her and talk of a fight and bikers at a barbecue joint. The Eagle can’t get the story because its reporters no longer seem to develop sources. I can’t remember the coroner’s office not releasing basic info if the police won’t. The Eagle’s lack of credibility has injured it.

Same with a story about possibly contaminated water at a Berks bottling company. A warning from the state came out June 19; nothing in the Eagle as of Sunday night, June 21.

How about this: Police say 30-year-old former teacher Jonathan Ruppert of Hamburg sexually assaulted a 17-year-old student in a Lebanon High School classroom in April.

You can read about it everywhere but the Reading Eagle, because although it LOOKS like a newspaper, it really isn’t one.