The front page of a broad-sheet daily newspaper has traditionally been treated as a window to what's happening in the readers' world, a collection of the most interesting and most important news of the day.
That seems to have changed.
Today (Sunday, Nov. 18, 2008) the Chicago Tribune, supposedly one of the leading metropolitan daily newspapers in the country, ran a one-story front page about the dangers some cribs pose to babies. It's a story that's part of an on-going interest of the Tribune. In other words, not anything new to regular readers.
In the past, it has been a point of emphasis for the folks who deliver the paper to make sure the front page is displayed through the plastic bag for subscribers to see when they pick up the paper off their front porches. Not today. The front page was so insignificant that it was hidden behind another section.
There was a time when printers, the folks who worked outside the newsroom and served a role between the editorial department and the press room, would put together the front page. Their rule of thumb was to make sure, when the page was completed, that a person could toss a quarter onto the front page and no matter where it landed, the quarter would touch a headline.
Now the visual school of thought has taken over newsrooms, claiming it's not a headline or subject that attracts readers but how the information plays visually on the page.
Meanwhile, the Tribune continues to lose readers and advertisers at an alarming rate and its financial losses of the last quarter indicate the need for even more layoffs, probably many more of which will come from the editorial staff.
Maybe whoever thought the new Tribune was a good idea will be the one who gets to turn out the lights.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Change really comes closer to home
A lot of very happy folks woke up this morning already looking forward to the new world order they hope will be created with the election of Barack Obama as president. Having grown up in the deep South during a time when blacks and whites drank at different public water fountains and sat in separate waiting rooms, it is remarkable indeed to think this could happen in my lifetime.
A lot of people were voting for the first time in yesterday's election. A couple of the people in line ahead of me didn't know which precinct they lived in and were a little distressed when their name wasn't in the big book. For most, they just needed to walk to the other side of the room where a different precinct voted to find their name and cast their ballot.
With so much excitement, I'm left hoping they are not eventually disappointed.
The president has nothing to do with the fact that we pay the highest sales tax in the United States. He has nothing to do with the county's policy to review real estate assessments every three years and raise property taxes as much as 7 percent a year. He has nothing to do with a dangerous intersection that needs a traffic light, the gang members who huddle at the street corner as you get off public transportation and walk home from work, or the fact that less than half the freshman class at your neighborhood high school will graduate.
Presidential elections get so much of our attention they can't help but motivate us to vote.
If only there were a way to get people as motivated to participate in elections that really matter. It's a whole lot more important to people who their mayor is, their city councilman, their county board representative, their state representative or even their state senator. It matters more how the city clerk runs his office, or whether the clerk of courts is honest and conscientious.
But those jobs are less sexy, don't get the day-to-day attention and sometimes their election days are in the winter during lousy weather. People want their voices heard in a national election that swings on differences of hundreds of thousands or millions of votes, but don't feel the same way about a local election whose result could hinge on a couple of dozen votes.
And sometimes be decided by a single vote.
There's little doubt this nation feels better about itself today than it has in eight years, and there's no reason to believe things won't be better for this country four years from now than they are today.
But ask yourself: Can you say the same thing about your neighborhood?
A lot of people were voting for the first time in yesterday's election. A couple of the people in line ahead of me didn't know which precinct they lived in and were a little distressed when their name wasn't in the big book. For most, they just needed to walk to the other side of the room where a different precinct voted to find their name and cast their ballot.
With so much excitement, I'm left hoping they are not eventually disappointed.
The president has nothing to do with the fact that we pay the highest sales tax in the United States. He has nothing to do with the county's policy to review real estate assessments every three years and raise property taxes as much as 7 percent a year. He has nothing to do with a dangerous intersection that needs a traffic light, the gang members who huddle at the street corner as you get off public transportation and walk home from work, or the fact that less than half the freshman class at your neighborhood high school will graduate.
Presidential elections get so much of our attention they can't help but motivate us to vote.
If only there were a way to get people as motivated to participate in elections that really matter. It's a whole lot more important to people who their mayor is, their city councilman, their county board representative, their state representative or even their state senator. It matters more how the city clerk runs his office, or whether the clerk of courts is honest and conscientious.
But those jobs are less sexy, don't get the day-to-day attention and sometimes their election days are in the winter during lousy weather. People want their voices heard in a national election that swings on differences of hundreds of thousands or millions of votes, but don't feel the same way about a local election whose result could hinge on a couple of dozen votes.
And sometimes be decided by a single vote.
There's little doubt this nation feels better about itself today than it has in eight years, and there's no reason to believe things won't be better for this country four years from now than they are today.
But ask yourself: Can you say the same thing about your neighborhood?
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