If you want to take an accurate temperature of the state of journalism, it might be helpful to focus not on the major national publications, but rather on some smaller papers that serve local communities. Here you can find bald examples of what generally ails the news business.

First, illiteracy. “The Delaware Wave” is one of two weekly papers that serve a rather large geographical area in southern Delaware, including several towns. It’s owned by the Gannett company, which also owns a number of other small and large papers across the country, plus the “News-Journal,” the major state daily in Wilmington. Here is a sampling of what I found in the most recent (February 13) issue, my corrections in parentheses:

“As a cynic (critic) of the current system, Cape Henlopen High School Athletic Director Bob Cilento believes ……”

“Office space was attained (obtained) by reorganizing the office.”

“Services will be supplemented ahead of schedual (schedule).”

“One afternoon program has been working to hype students up (I have no idea) about doing their homework.”

These samplings are typical of what the paper offers week after week.

Second: What is seen as fit to print emanates almost entirely from what officials are saying. Except for an occasional feature, there is almost no original reporting.

Disgusted by the paper’s failure to report the effect of the housing slowdown on the countless workers who have been building houses here during the boom, I wrote a letter to the editor that was published in the same issue of “The Wave.” I said that even though the paper was publishing page after page of sheriff’s sales of foreclosed houses, the editors seemed to be blind to the resulting human tragedy.

Ironically, in the same issue there is a story about foreclosures, written by a reporter from the Wilmington paper. It concerns animals that are abandoned when owners desert their houses – a touching tale, but I can only conclude that what happens to animals is newsworthy, while humans are destined to remain invisible.

I know these small papers are traditional training grounds for beginning reporters, but I believe readers have a right to expect that those who are hired are well acquainted with the English language. And where they goof (I confess I made plenty of goofs myself when I was reporting), they should be corrected by a more experienced copy editor before the error lands on the printed page. But this paper has a kind of careless, slapdash quality, as though nobody is exercising oversight and nobody really cares. What’s sad is that the young reporters are learning that it’s all right to write sloppy copy because they can get away with it.

It isn’t as though the paper’s owners are too poor to hire good staff. “The Wave” is always fat with ads and inserts, and behind it is the largest news organization in the U.S. The paper serves a growing area where retirees from nearby cities including New York, Washington and Philadelphia are settling permanently or buying properties they use or rent in the summer season.

Oh yes, you should see what story takes up the entire front page of this issue. It’s about a school board’s efforts to prevent students from transferring from one school to another in order to take part in a particular kind of athletics. A large color photo of two wrestlers graces the page and there’s a long jump page inside. It’s a respectable sports story, but on Page One?