Editor:

I am sorry to have to tell you I will no longer be reading the North Coast Journal after having enjoyed it for many, many years.

Ever since the change of the guard in your paper’s editorship, standards have gradually slipped to a level which today I can only call abominable. I no longer consider the North Coast Journal a newspaper. To my eyes, all it is today is a fancy advertising pamphlet and event calendar.

The editorial and journalistic content of this once great newspaper are now no more than slanderous opinions and trivial stories. You have some nerve criticizing the Times-Standard for poor reporting on local issues such as the wildfires in the same issue where your headline story is a popularity contest between Arcata and Eureka, as judged by barflies and bums. For shame! I am no particular fan of the Times-Standard, but at least that newspaper actually reports the news!

So your editor has quit smoking, and his car blew a head gasket at Reggae on the River. Are these things in any way relevant? They certainly do not belong in a newspaper, not even on its editorial page. They belong in someone’s personal diary.

Run some real news for a change, preferably written by your own staff and not borrowed from the Sacramento News & Review. Or do you no longer employ any journalists?

Publish this letter or not, I don’t care. I will not even pick up the next North Coast Journal to see if you did.

— Petra Taylor-Vandormael, Arcata

Sweet Spot: Sorry, last month’s winners — still awaiting new coupons from the busy folks at Bon Boniere. They’re coming. That said, Petra Taylor-Vandormael is obviously this week’s winner — she takes home a Bon Boniere sundae for sending our favorite letter of the week.