Weak, weak, weak

Someone had a letter to the editor in the Vicad this morning complaining that the paper had become weak, playing off an embarrassing typo in a headline. (At least I hope it was a typo; I would really hate to think that a newspaper copy editor did not get the weak/week distinction.)
As if to prove the point about weakness, there was a story on Page 1 today that pained to read. The lede:

As in most cases in the mid-60s, Victoria Hispanics making it big was a taboo, and nothing to be disseminated by the city's news media.

The discerning reader will ask just wtf that means, beyond the obvious sense of grievance emanating from the writer. Then, further on:

Cisneros knew he was leaving, but the idea of working with his childhood friends and performing with who they would perform with on the tours was, for him, a way out.

More infelicitous writing is hard to imagine. The writer, Manuel De Los Santos Jr., is some kind of editor. Makes the skin crawl to contemplate what he might do to someone else’s writing.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer discontinued print publication today, though a Web publication is apparently hoped for. Also, the Tucson Citizen will end up the same kind of dead this week, most likely. Someday soon a major American city will be without a printed newspaper. It will not be a good day for the republic.