For Our Next Stay, Please Beef Up Your Coverage

An open letter to Fernando Gonzalez Corona (publisher) and Ruben Valdes (editor) of the Los Cabos Daily News:

Since returning to San Jose del Cabo three months ago, we've subscribed to the Daily News, looking forward each morning to its mix of international, financial, lifestyle and sports news, as well as the crossword puzzle.

We're now starting to pack up for our return to Northern California. When we come back to San Jose this fall or winter, I'd like to see some changes in the paper if we are to resume our subscription:

Mostly, I'd like to see more local news. This shouldn't be too difficult. I believe you also publish Spanish-language newspapers with a heavy focus on Baja California Sur generally and Los Cabos specifically. How difficult would it be to translate and include in the Daily News some of those articles? Not difficult at all, I suspect. I believe your ex-pat audience would be more interested in compelling local stories than articles on international events about which they already have been well briefed by CNN and other sources of televised news. By continuing to focus on news out of Washington, D.C., and New York City you are missing an opportunity to close a gap within Los Cabos, and that is the division between the local fulltime native population and the community of residents from elsewhere who live here perhaps only part of the year, but who nonetheless want to be active and positive members of the region. Every time there's a fire or some other incident at the estuary, for example, my wife and I want to know about it, but we never find any sort of report in the Daily News.

If nothing else, add a comprehensive and accurate calendar of local events. Residents who live in Los Cabos just part time but who would like to be a part of the local culture while they are here have no consistent and reliable source that I am aware of to become aware of and to participate in the terrific range of cultural events that occur in and about Los Cabos. Where can I find a schedule of soccer matches at that outstanding stadium in Cabo San Lucas? How do I learn of races at the magnificent velodrome in San Jose del Cabo? That's a goal you should recognize and capitalize on.

OK, I recognize that this sort of additional local coverage can be costly - more expensive than ripping and pasting feeds from The Washington Post and Bloomberg News - but you are missing a potentially lucrative revenue stream by ignoring restaurant news and restaurant advertising. By my experience, when family and friends come to Los Cabos they first want to know about the local culinary scene - where to eat, where to find values, who is doing the most exciting cooking, what's the story behind that cafe or that food stall at the municipal market? You don't have to publish restaurant reviews, just a column of news items about what's new, what you've discovered, and what's inspired this chef or that restaurateur. I'm a longtime journalist, now largely retired, who spent many years reviewing restaurants. I'm not looking for work, just passing on what I consider a valid observation from my experience, and that is that people love to eat out, especially when they are on holiday, and welcome informed and fair guidance.

Finally, I'd like to see more news in the Daily News from the western U.S. I sense that if you were to canvass your readership you would find that it consists mostly of people from California, the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Your current news sources only occasionally cover the issues and personalities of those regions, however. While I admire The Washington Post and the breadth and depth of its coverage, I think you would better serve your readership if you also subscribed to such syndicates as the Los Angeles Times and McClatchy News Service, the latter of which I have had a longterm relationship, though in a modest role.

Please take my suggestions in the spirit in which they are intended: I enjoy the feel of newsprint in my hands each morning, and just want the contents of the paper I'm holding, in this instance the Daily News, to be more compelling, more successful and more influential among local residents, whether they live here fulltime or part-time.