Touché.

At what population point will the OKC metro reach the critical mass required to support another daily? Local papers are the only ones I physically touch (sans keyboard and mouse) save the WSJ and other choice papers from the great beyond. I like the feel of paper in my hand. And my couch is more comfortable than my computer chair. I want another daily paper.

We are past that mark. No one has chosen to invest the money to start a daily since Atkinson.

The economic metrics of newspapers are bizarre, to say the least. Few big cities have competing dailies anymore. Our good-looking big brother, Dallas, only has one paper now. It's just the way things are.

The only thing we have is the Oklahoman, and that's all we are likely to have in the future.

Hell, even New York truly only has one "paper of record."

The reason we complain about the Oklahoman is that it defines who we are to the world and to ourselves. And by its defition, it miniaturizes what we truly are as a city and state.

Malibu, I have always read the paper, and taken from it what I can, so I certainly understand where you're coming from. The challenge is, our state is one of the most illiterate states in the union -- and that is simply telling it like it is. The Oklahoman does little to broaden our horizons or face that problem head on.

There have been many improvements at the paper since Gaylord's passing, and I would be wrong not to mention them. But the paper is anything but a "big city" paper. It is an embodiment of mediocrity and staid, suburban ideas. It is not terrible, but it is not excellent in any single way.

I have a number of friends who work there and appreciate the jobs that they have. That being said, they would be the first to acknowledge that they all aspired to work for a better paper, and feel that the Oklahoman is not even worthy of a city like Oklahoma City.

I've heard countless stories about how the Oklahoman higher ups were seriously befuddled that they didn't win a Pulitzer for their bombing coverage. But I can tell you, as someone very directly impacted by the bombing, that the coverage in the Dallas Morning News and New York Times was leagues better than that in the Oklahoman. What the Oklahoman did well was serve as a sort of "news dump" for content about the bombing. A lot of quantity, but not much quality.

The powers that be at the Oklahoman thought they deserved the highest honor bestowed in journalism, and they will never truly earn such a prize because they don't follow the most basic precepts of providing quality journalism.

The paper has served mostly in its history as a vehicle for advertising; the "journalistic" element of the paper has existed only insofar as it has advanced the publisher's extreme right wing agenda.

Name one quality big-city paper that doesn't employ a full-time film critic; a full-time food critic; offer an op-ed page; etc. etc.

If you want to find out what the good ol' boy "socialites" are doing in Nichols Hills, the Oklahoman is an excellent newspaper.

I commend the paper for making improvements, but it is still worlds beneath what good, enterprising newspapers are doing in cities much smaller than ours.

No sense defending the entity that has largely made OKC what it is, and has mostly held it back.

and I think the main "hatred" of the Gaylords has always been they drive the competition out and the fact that they have way too many special interests

News-wise, you're probably better off picking up The Dallas Morning News and reading the "Southwest" section. The DMN has decent coverage of Oklahoma news in its regional section, so there is a good alternative to the Oklahoman.

The paper from the Dark Tower suppresses the truth. It either goes their way or the highway. I have seen letters that were sent to the Dark Tower that were edited to ensure that reporting the truth about Union Station was never reported and only focused on the so called benefits of the realignment.

I do not purchase anything from the Dark Tower (aka The Daily Jokelahoman). The news is heavily biased to self serving individuals.