National news coverage

There are no Associated Press or national news stories anywhere in today's edition of the Wheeling News-Register. While World War III apparently did not begin yesterday and President Trump refrained from personally attacking anyone on Twitter (Easter break?), there were important national and international stories that were not covered. For example, from Kiosko.net:

From the front page of today's Washington Post:

N. Korean missile failure follows day of military fanfare

and the New York Times:

Raft of Potential Conflicts in President's Appointees

and

Assad's Opponents Seek Justice For Victims of the War in Syria

Local news coverage

The front page does cover two recent news stories: retailer Rue21's Highlands closure and the Bethlehem Apostolic Temple's annual Easter giveaway. Both of these stories appear at the bottom of the page. Dominating the front page is a story about the new Boury Loft apartments which (with very large pictures) takes up at least half of the available news space. While it may be nice to read that the Boury Lofts are renting, I don't understand how this is a news story -- let alone the biggest, in Wheeling. The article is a feature story as is the article next to it about two local shop owners: "LGBT Flag Flown For More Than 20 Years." That's it for news -- there are no other news (or even feature) stories in the entire front section.

Additionally, there are two feature stories that appear on the front page of the "Opinion and Community" section. You can't miss the first one -- it's accompanied by a large picture of a truck that takes up most of the available space above the fold. (The picture of the truck is there to illustrates the story "Industrial Parks Busy in Belmont County" because nothing helps us better understand a story about industrial parks better than a large picture of a giant truck!) The article first appeared in the Martins Ferry Times-Leader a week ago and I have no idea why this is considered a story. Below the article, however, is a legitimate feature story about a local teacher winning an award.

And so today's Sunday "newspaper" contains no national news, two local news stories, and three or four feature stories. My hunch is that today's paper was put together sometime on Friday with space left for coverage of Reverend Cummings annual event.

Hey, aren't we due for another one of those editorials telling us what a great job they do keeping us informed?