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Illustration by
Mike Reddy |
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Hey Edit Staffers,
You don't need me to tell you about the state of our industry. To give a précis, our newspaper's print circulation currently extends to writers of ransom notes; a cruel man on Oak Street who uses the publication to whack his dog; and stubborn, elderly shut-ins who refuse to get with the times and will likely die soon -- say next year, when the city's 911 emergency number moves online. Finances remain tight: Many of you have already enjoyed the Subway subs franchise we are leasing from the space that the Xerox machines, now pawned, formerly occupied. And if our predictions for the next fiscal quarter prove accurate, and advertising drops 260%, things are likely to get worse still.
 Conversely, our online readership has hit an all-time high. The union may have balked at our added web responsibilities, but I think we can all agree that writing five to six blog posts per day is a more gratifying activity than waiting on a bread line. I take particular pride in specialty blogs like the Thongista, in which Doug posts images of underwear advertisements for those teenage readers who once turned to the print edition for such material, and Rotten Fish Wrap, in which we write about how horrible newspapers are.
And so, our company has reached a crucial turning point. Either we stick with the old model and sink, like all those squeaky-voiced silent movie stars at the dawn of talkies, or we adapt to the world's technological challenges and stay afloat, like pushy industrialists elbowing their way onto the Titanic's lifeboats. Some of these changes are simple, such as providing a web link for every noun appearing in the newspaper, or creating a Facebook group for each front-page article. Others may seem more complex, especially to those older staffers who have yet to accept our buy-out package of JC Penney coupon books and frozen hamburger meat. But I trust that both of you will quickly immerse yourselves in the exciting world of widgets, tumblelogs, Skype chats with angry letter-writers, inserting your columns into online video games, editing Wikipedia entries to reflect your reporting, hacking Digg, recording podcasts for the benefit of readers who do not like to read, and writing headlines found vivid and engaging by Google's search engine.
Let's look at two articles, both covering local fires. The first was written by a former staff reporter and current short-order cook. "A ferocious inferno swept through a four-story building on Main Street early Friday morning," it begins. The article goes on to quote the building owner and distressed neighbors; I'm sure my grandfather would have found it riveting. Now, let's see Doug's piece, filed after a warehouse blaze last week. He dispensed with a traditional lede, instead live-blogging the event and sending Twitter tweets with all the basic information. A YouTube video showed Doug chatting with local hipsters about the neighborhood's loft scene, while an iMeem stream allowed people to enjoy a selection of pop tunes -- "Burning Down the House," "Hot in Herre" and the like -- while they read. Working in conjunction with scientists at the university, Doug developed primitive scratch-and-sniff Internet technology allowing readers to experience what fire smells like. Finally, Doug provided a link of his piece to bitchybitchygaymedia.com so that the website's commentators could ridicule the moustache of one of the firefighters, who tragically died. All this from an intern!
These are the reporting skills we all must develop if we are to stay off welfare in the 21st century. Sure, there have been bumps along the road. Like when, in lieu of a traditional article about the gubernatorial election, we linked to a rival paper, not knowing that their article merely provided a link to our own story. Or when Huan, the correspondent from Tuvalu to whom we outsourced the Hollywood beat, mistook Angelina Jolie for a primeval serpentine goddess, returning to earth to raise holy hell in time for the apocalypse. Or when we learned that Huan had outsourced his responsibilities to an elderly woman in the Republic of Namibia. Or when Doug mispronounced Mayor Muthirfucir's name in his hourly video blog, and all of the staffers experienced enough to catch the error were in a seminar about RSS Feeds.
Or when we attempted to oust Terry as the paper's film critic in favor of a commentator who had wittily flamed him on a discussion board, and then discovered that the commentator was in fact Terry himself, desperately trying to stir up web attention. Or the incident with the Bengal tiger. Or when we promised cash bonuses to the writers of the paper's three most e-mailed articles, and all three spots were occupied by sugar-cookie recipes from the syndicated column "Baking Healthy with Dr. Laurie." Or when we couldn't afford to pay our web server, and the penis-enlargement site that squatted on our domain won a Pulitzer Prize for public service. And yes, spelling errors have proliferated since we replaced the copy department with Lincoln Elementary School's 5th grade English class -- but from what Mrs. O'Malley tells me, the incoming 4th graders are a much sharper lot.
Now for the love of Christ, get tweeting, journalists!
--Jay Ruttenberg
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For more, see Lowbrow Reader #7. Order .
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