1 March—Monitor readers and others who depend on the Hearst Republican-American in real paper and online for their world and national news won’t know until they get to the penultimate page that yesterday Donald Trump and his flunky vice president (a.k.a. Trumpky) embarrassed themselves and the United States in front of the world from the Oval Office where Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy courageously and heroically refused to grovel and kiss Trump’s fat, corrupt, vengeful ass.

And the ever-declining number of Hearst Republican-American readers won’t know that shortly after the rumble in the White House Trump’s flunky secretary of state (also a Trumpky) called on Zelenskyy to apologize for “wasting our time for a meeting that was gonna end the way it did.” From that little comment it would appear that Donald and his Trumpkies were intending from the start to bully Zelenskyy into accepting Trump’s unacceptable agreement that would have provided nothing at all to Ukraine’s advantage.

During the televised meeting the Trumpky vice president obviously couldn’t wait to jump in and bait Zelensky so that Trump—the star of the show, of course—could pounce on the hapless victim who couldn’t defend himself. Like a tag team of schoolyard bullies. (It probably brought back Trump’s old times at prep school and military academy.) But Zelensky refused to be a victim and staged a creditable offense that caught the bullies off guard.

So Trump naturally chased the press out: “I think we’ve seen enough. This is going to be great television, I will say that.” It was also great radio. And great press in general. So why wasn’t it in the Hearst Republican-American?

In fact, why has there been virtually no national or world news in the Hearst Republican-American? Sure, it’s not a national newspaper of record and there never was all that much in the Pape Republican-American, mind you. And while we’re on the lack of news coverage, what’s happened to coverage of Litchfield and the surrounding towns since Pape sold the good will to Hearst and kept the real estate? There used to be some. Local coverage and good will. Now there’s the Hearst sandwich spread.

Still no copy editing or proofreading. And evidently the software used by Republican-American staffers to write whatever they write is only semi-compatible with the software used at the Hearst printing plant in Albany. Whenever an ampersand is in the text, for instance, we read “&amp.” We won’t go into asterisks and other anomalies. Lighter paper and minimally narrower pages and smaller type?

In the much better old days the Pape newspapers were printed right on the premises in Waterbury. Then, as readership and journalistic fortunes declined, printing was moved up to Springfield. That also moved up the deadline. And now, with printing in Albany—twice the distance to Springfield from Waterbury—the deadline is even earlier. Thus, people who follow school sports get that news a day late. And they’re more than unhappy . . .