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During my lengthy tenure as the television critic for the Buffalo News, I was frequently taken to task by readers who thought that the newspaper was guilty of a few things that I held the local television stations accountable for doing.

The answer my first editor told me to say to those critics was “I don’t critique the newspaper.”

Now that I’ve left, I can critique the newspaper in my role as an overall media critic.

I still love the newspaper. It still does things that no other local media can do – like Sunday’s excellent profiles of congressional candidates Jane Corwin, Kathy Hochul and Jack Davis by Phil Fairbanks and Jerry Zremski.

But too often lately, the paper seems more like local TV news. And that isn’t a compliment.

Specifically, I’m talking about the coverage of the Buffalo Sabres playoff run against the Philadelphia Flyers in a series that ends with Game 7 tonight.

After every game, the newspaper has been prominently running columns by sportswriters Jerry Sullivan or Bucky Gleason on the front page.

I’m of two minds about this development. For years, I criticized the local television stations for leading newscasts with lengthy stories about the Sabres.

Sure, the Sabres game probably was the most-talked about subject. However, we’re talking about a sports story, not a news story. It belongs in sports, except for unusual circumstances like a series win or a title victory. The newspaper always seemed to value what is important over what is popular.

In other words, the paper always seemed to keep sports in more perspective than the TV stations. Not anymore.

I’m not totally against the change, even if it looks like it is partly inspired by the same problem local TV stations are dealing with: the loss of reporting manpower. With less manpower after buyouts, there are fewer high quality stories being done worthy of the front page. That leaves more room for sports stories and local columns that used to run in other sections of the paper.

If I were still at the paper I’d even advocate highlighting star local columnists like Sullivan, Gleason, Donn Esmonde, Rod Watson and Jeff Simon because they give the paper something distinct from all the national stories that the paper runs that can be found on the internet or on a local TV or cable website. I’d also highlight the expertise of political writer Robert J. McCarthy, music critic Jeff Miers and theater critic Colin Dabkowski as often as warranted. And I’d try to create new stars, as the paper is trying to do with columnist Denise Jewell Gee.

However, they only would make it to the front page when their stories or columns are warranted of being there.

And largely because of deadlines, the Sabres columns often don’t seem deserving of the front page.

A week ago, the paper ran a Sullivan column on Page 1 about the impact of new Owner Terry Pegula the morning after the Sabres lost game 3. Not exactly a new topic. Clearly, the majority of the column was written before the game, which meant there was about one paragraph about the game.

Last Thursday, a Gleason column on the front page extolled the virtues of Patrick Kaleta, who was labeled the Sabres “perpetual pest.” The focus on Kaleta seemed odd since goaltender Ryan Miller was the star in a 1-0 victory Wednesday night. Gleason skillfully wove Miller in the story, but Kaleta remained the headliner.

The columns on Pegula and Kaleta were decent – for an off day. They looked out of place on page 1 after a game. Columns like that make it look like the change in page 1 philosophy doesn’t take into account whether columns are worthy of being on the front page.

Additionally, we’re talking about the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. If the first round gets front-page treatment for routine columns, how will the paper up the ante if the Sabres upset the Flyers in Game 7 tonight and qualify for round 2 against Washington?

Will there be two front page stories about the Sabres if they play the Caps?

Of course, the Sabres were the underdogs in the Flyers series. Readers might have been confused because the day the Sullivan column on Pegula ran the page 1 headline read “Flyers Upset Sabres.” The Flyers are the second seed in the East, the Sabres are the seventh seed. That headline was as big a head scratcher as the Kaleta page 1 headline.

However, the Flyers win did seem to upset the newspaper’s planning on a day Pegula was being celebrated again.

The headline was another illustration of how forced some of the Sabres coverage has become.

Another illustration came Sunday when the newspaper started a lengthy story on page 1 that suggested that Sabres fans would have to choose between watching the Easter Sunday afternoon game on national television and sitting down for Easter dinner.

Some of my Jewish friends jokingly wondered where was the story Monday when another game competed against the first night of Passover? Joking aside, the majority of the Sunday story seemed to suggest that only Christians live here.

The placement – and even the story – was a head-scratcher since it would have been relatively easy to schedule Easter dinner around the 3:20 p.m. game start.

But what made the story look even sillier was a story that ran on a recent Sunday that detailed the increasing difficulties of getting people to church on Sunday.

The Sunday game drew the highest-rating of the series locally. In other words, Christians apparently didn’t seem to have much difficulty making the choice.

Easter dinner versus the Sabres on TV was really the kind of superficial story that you expect to see on local TV news and not on page one of a high-quality newspaper like The Buffalo News.

pergament@msn.com

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