Most of these corporate, youth-aimed
tabloids -- so contrived, so focus-grouped, so obviously conceived and
produced as lowbrow entertainment products badly disguised as
journalism -- remind me of nothing so much as the clueless, middle-aged
uncle trying so hard to seem cool, and embarrassing himself in the
process.
Trying to be Gawker, which Ms. Tallent explicitly
stated is her aim, is just like that goofy uncle pretending he's 22
years old. Newspapers need to change, but they don't need to change
into Gawker. There already is a Gawker. Newspapers have a different
mission, and more importantly, Gawker actually means it, and the
writers there are actually good at what they do. There is no consultant
or focus-group report telling them what the kids are interested in.
They just know.
Clueless
Baltimore's free daily paper, b, had as its front page headline yeasterday, "Douchebage! 56 Ways to Tell If You Are One." "Douchebag" was in massive type, and of course there's been substantial outcry. Though the headline is indeed about as intelligent as an NYT trend story, the story itself is even dumber. I'll let Romenesko commenter Dan Mitchell take it from here (after the jump).
