It’s no secret how much trouble most daily newspapers are in. They are buffeted by the twin forces of technology and popular culture. The Internet and social media and Jon Stewart as the news. How to woo back the seemingly unwoo-able?
Here’s a suggestion. Don’t make your product worse. As in noticeably so. Careless misspellings and generic typos are now increasingly routine. An ever-narrowing “broadsheet” is much in evidence. No mention, on occasion, of where a to-be-continued story jumps to. Keep turning, you’ll come to it. Did editors and proofreaders go the way of high-priced columnists?
Just last week I noticed a local daily (ok, the St. Pete Times) had no date on its front page. FRONT page. A prominent story chronicling what U.S. Rep. Ron Paul said about Cuba was under this two-column (Times) headline: Paul Say Embargo of Cuba Has Failed. Say what? Has subject-verb agreement gone the way of texting grammar? Or how about the NHL playoff-game headline “Canadiens Top Bruins”? Actually, if one read the (Trib’s) lead, it would be evident that it was actually the Bruins topping the Canadiens. But, close enough. It was, indeed, a game between Montreal and Boston and somebody got topped.