Open letter to the Gazette

I just sent the Gazette a version of this:

Dear editor,

The Business section of the Gazette ran an article on the RealMatch job-matching service today (Sept. 3, page B6).

Canadians cannot use RealMatch, a service only available to Americans.

With my background as a journalism professor and in Internet publishing, I don't understand how newspapers expect to survive while re-using material from other sources and often available online instead of creating their own local reporting.

This RealMatch article is a particularly egregious example of the overall trend. The Gazette performs no service to the Montreal community by printing it.

I'm tired of seeing in the Gazette wire copy that I read online a day earlier. The Gazette, and other newspapers, need to focus on the local environment and on local aspects of international stories if they are to succeed.

It's even worse. I couldn't find the article, sourced to the Washington Post, at the Gazette Web site, so I searched for it. I found it. It appeared in the Washington Post on Aug. 17. It's not only useless news, it's old useless news.

Bonus task accomplished:

While up last night contemplating Yusmeiro Petit's sinking to his established level, I heard a snap from downstairs. I caught (and executed) the rat - and it was most certainly a rat, although a small one about five inches long with a tail about four inches long. I must admit that it was the cutest rat I've ever seen.