Tribune Co. 'Chief Innovation Officer' Delivers More Laugh Lines

[Chi City 81]

Holy shit. He does look like Ron Jeremy.

[fishwrapper]

Dude looks sort of like Ron Jeremy.

you mean the SE in eugene?

OK. Got me, tom.

[2muchcoffeeman]

Holy shit. He does look like Ron Jeremy.

[Bubbler]

I'm stunned that blog's comment section didn't suffer Wenal failure.

Well played sir.

[dooley_womack1]

Are helmets as good as logos? But I agree with the person who spoke of people trying to sell us snake oil. The Say Say Say video comes to mind.

[Armchair_QB]

Holy shit. He does look like Ron Jeremy.

[AreaMan]

actually I think the guy has some OK ideas. there's nothing wrong with changing things up a little. And at least he's coming up with some different things.

[ServeItUp]

I'm all for listening to some new ideas about how to stay in business, but don't act like a salesman and treat me like a customer. Just tell me your ideas and try not to sound like a cliche-spouting poster child for business schools. Deal with me like a human being and not a "mark." Please.

[JayFarrar]

One of the things I caught from that memo was putting things in the same place.
It was mocked by the web site, saying papers already do that, but they don't and it is a great source of frustration to regular readers.
The site says papers already have weather pages, but is the weather page on the same page, in the same section every day for every every week, year-round?
The answer is no.
I like watching Lost on TV. What if ABC moved the show around from day to day, and at different times? Who would watch it?
The hardcore fans would find it, the casual fans would lose interest.
All this guy seems to be saying, when you strip away the wording, is papers are doing a damn fine job of running off the first-time or casual reader.
And, maybe, that would change if papers were more consistent.

[dixiehack]

The latest Ron Jeremy missive. Is there anything more Dilbert-esque than a "THINK PIECE"?

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13355

[Captain_Kirk]

Holy shit. He does look like Ron Jeremy.

[dixiehack]

Prototype. Offered without comment.

[whatwoulddamondo?]

if you ever wanted to know what fail would look like in a broadsheet package, you just found out.

[Big Buckin' agate_monkey]

if you ever wanted to know what fail would look like in a broadsheet package, you just found out.

Explain.

[Ace]

Prototype. Offered without comment.

So the other half of O'Bama's brain is a middle-aged, pearl-sporting black woman?

[whatwoulddamondo?]

if you ever wanted to know what fail would look like in a broadsheet package, you just found out.

Explain.

-- trib.

-- a huge mugshot of some lady, with one leg of text over two columns on a page that sorely needs better-positioned white (no pun intended) space.

-- question heds do nothing for me.

-- most importantly, a layout that will be impossible to reproduce every day. i would hate to design that front page on a sunday night outside football season.

[Big Buckin' agate_monkey]

if you ever wanted to know what fail would look  like in a broadsheet package, you just found out.

Explain.

-- trib.

-- a huge mugshot of some lady, with one leg of text over two columns on a page that sorely needs better-positioned white (no pun intended) space.

-- question heds do nothing for me.

-- most importantly, a layout that will be impossible to reproduce every day. i would hate to design that front page on a sunday night outside football season.

-- People call it the Trib.

-- So the big mug shot is a bit ... magazine-ish? ... but doesn't that mug with the Obama headline make you slightly curious? My first thought ... that's Obama's mom. Yeah, I do wanna read about Obama's mom.

-- Agreed. Question headlines are typically fail. And in this case, it is fail.

-- Well, that's because you don't mimic that EVERY day. You can't really be suggesting a 4 by 12 mug works for every story, and I doubt the Trib people are suggesting that either. And why would it be a pain outside of football season? I can only assume it's the cutout in the upper right corner. There's never any other sporting event on a Sunday? Or, maybe some award thing (Oscars, drawing a blank, etc.)? Obviously there needs to be some planning for pages like this, but it's not THAT bad.   

[Ace]

if you ever wanted to know what fail would look  like in a broadsheet package, you just found out.

Explain.

-- trib.

-- a huge mugshot of some lady, with one leg of text over two columns on a page that sorely needs better-positioned white (no pun intended) space.

-- question heds do nothing for me.

-- most importantly, a layout that will be impossible to reproduce every day. i would hate to design that front page on a sunday night outside football season.

-- So the big mug shot is a bit ... magazine-ish? ... but doesn't that mug with the Obama headline make you slightly curious? My first thought ... that's Obama's mom. Yeah, I do wanna read about Obama's mom.

Obama's mom is white, FWIW

[BTExpress]

I hate that term "better-positioned white space".

To me white space is like the air you see when you open a bag of potato chips and see it only half full.

"I paid for THIS?"

And that's what our recently redesigned paper has become.

White space between paragraphs in charts. White space above any subheads in a story. White space between labels and heads in briefs packages. White space forced onto most open pages because it's built on a 9-column grid (it's not quite what you think, but still sucks).

[whatwoulddamondo?]

news on sunday is full of ... nothing. if you want to be topical and, um, newsy, you need something with a news peg on there.

at least during football season you can come up with some lame centerpiece based on the prior day's game.

frank ridgeway once said it best on one of the orlando threads. sure, their sports section plans up the wazoo and puts together nice enterprise, but at some point you have to have *news* content. not fluff. and if you're going magazine-style seven days a week, that gets old fast.

and bt, i mean better positioned white space as in not giving me a massive leg of text. that's just way too big of a leg of text there, imo.

[Big Buckin' agate_monkey]

if you ever wanted to know what fail would look  like in a broadsheet package, you just found out.

Explain.

-- trib.

-- a huge mugshot of some lady, with one leg of text over two columns on a page that sorely needs better-positioned white (no pun intended) space.

-- question heds do nothing for me.

-- most importantly, a layout that will be impossible to reproduce every day. i would hate to design that front page on a sunday night outside football season.

-- So the big mug shot is a bit ... magazine-ish? ... but doesn't that mug with the Obama headline make you slightly curious? My first thought ... that's Obama's mom. Yeah, I do wanna read about Obama's mom.

Obama's mom is white, FWIW

So the woman on the page has spent a little time on the beach.     

[Big Buckin' agate_monkey]

news on sunday is full of ... nothing. if you want to be topical and, um, newsy, you need something with a news peg on there.

at least during football season you can come up with some lame centerpiece based on the prior day's game.

frank ridgeway once said it best on one of the orlando threads. sure, their sports section plans up the wazoo and puts together nice enterprise, but at some point you have to have *news* content. not fluff. and if you're going magazine-style seven days a week, that gets old fast.

and bt, i mean better positioned white space as in not giving me a massive leg of text. that's just way too big of a leg of text there, imo.

Obama's not newsy right now? Anyone related to the Obama camp isn't newsy?

You can't be newsy and magazine-ish at the same time? I'm not suggesting that every day, mind you, but once or twice a week. Then again, that would require enterprising stories instead of taking what falls in our laps.

 

[whatwoulddamondo?]

You can't be newsy and magazine-ish at the same time? I'm not suggesting that every day, mind you, but once or twice a week. Then again, that would require enterprising stories instead of taking what falls in our laps.

you can -- but not at the staffing levels at which papers currently operate. and not when your execs have mentioned that byline count is a high priority.

[Big Buckin' agate_monkey]

You can't be newsy and magazine-ish at the same time? I'm not suggesting that every day, mind you, but once or twice a week. Then again, that would require enterprising stories instead of taking what falls in our laps.

you can -- but not at the staffing levels at which papers currently operate. and not when your execs have mentioned that byline count is a high priority.

Fair point, and one that needs to be asked of execs when they roll this out.

[slappy4428]

I wouldn't buy it. As was said here, too magazineish...