In Philly, Gonzo and more ...

What do people think of the Philadelphia Inquirer's Gonzo page two experiment? I don't get it, but maybe the world has passed me by.

I actually appreciate that the Inquirer and Daily News seem to be trying to adjust to the Internet age. But too often their adjustments just seem dumb. Like printing huge excerpts from blogs.

Uh, guys. Blogs get a lot of attention. But that doesn't mean that printing them in the paper qualifies as innovative. Or interesting. It's not.

The Inquirer has also all but abandoned high school coverage. Good move or bad?

The Daily News continues to do a tremendous job with city high schools. DN high school guy Ted Silary is one of the very best.

 

Saw that at the World Series. The page 2 e-mails -- three columnists e-mail each other, almost like a series of memos posing as a notes column -- were awful. Very forced.

 

All three are very talented writers. Bob Ford and Phil Sheridan are terrific columnists.

But this format ...

I don't know what the future of newspapers looks like. But I know this isn't it. It's painful to look at.

 

The Inquirer has more problems than Carter has liver pills. The place is a shell of what it used to be and it's sad. The employees are bitter and disenchanted. The readers are being jipped and the bottom line is that the new owners are having money woes.

 

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I like the name of the page (Sports Wit'), but if you're not a cheesesteak fan you don't get the joke. Could be a worse use of space, I suppose.

 

Outside of the fact that he writes like Simmons, talking about his friends using their awful nicknames, it's not bad. You can tell he's a decent writer, and at least they're taking a chance. It's when they let someone like Frank Fitzpatrick and his numbingly boring Morning Bytes column on that page that ruffles my feathers.