Playing the royal birth

I was pleased that the New York Times relegated the royal birth to its inside pages today. The Wall Street Journal dishonored itself by putting it on A1.

Where should it go?

EDIT: The New York Times actually ran a standalone photo of the birth on A1. Screw them, too.

 

Relegated? Pleased? Dishonored?

Was how to write a weighted question above the fold?

 

"Dishonoured," if you please. But good work on the relegation reference.

 

World Briefs.

 

USA Today — America's newspaper — had it as the lead story and six pages inside. SIX!

 

Bottom of 1A — poorly timed because we're a PM, but taking advantage of a slow day locally.

 

Which four stories bumps it from page one?

 

The NYT had six, and did not even give the royal birth a bottom-of-the-page refer:

(1) Decline of "genital cutting" in Africa (soft news);
(2) GSK white collar crime scandal in China (hard news - getting play everywhere);
(3) Former Wall Street enforcer becomes white collar defense attorney (hard news, though only as indicative of a trend);
(4) Qatar is buying up art for exorbitant prices (good combo hard/soft story and seemingly a Times exclusive);
(5) Brazilian inflation (hard/soft news combo - not pressing);
(6) Ryan Braun (hard news).

Other stories today that would be A1 candidates:

(1) Obama's pivot to the economy, evidenced by a series of planned speeches on "middle-out" economics;
(2) Another Brazil story: Pope Francis's visit;
(3) Pentagon addresses Syria;
(4) As Edward Snowden turns;
(5) North Dakota federal court abortion ruling;
(6) Netflix news;
(7) Detroit update;
(8) George Zimmerman helps out at crash scene;
(9) McDonald's news;
(10) Dell news;
(11) Housing market news (1.2 percent decline);
(12) LaGuardia landing gear failure;
(13) Study that puts cybercrime costs much lower than thought (WSJ had this story inside);
(14) EU puts Hezbollah on its terror list;
(15) Earthquake in China kills dozens.

 

1, 3, 4 and 5 could all get bumped one day, right?

And Braun is not bigger. No way. It's bigger for sports fans, but 50% of sports fans probably don't give a shit either.

 

Yes, those could all get bumped a day. But why? Putting this story inside is a bold statement by the New York Times, and one I agree with. This is celebrity news of pretty much the worst kind - people who are famous for being famous, essentially. Plus, it seems to go along with the NYT's guiding philosophies. The NYT is no fan of old money. I'm sure the pieces were planned in advance for this day, but it's worth noting that on the day "Princess Kate" gave birth, the New York Times ran A1 stories about genital mutilation among poor women in Africa, as well as a piece about a Qatari woman who is becoming a force in the art dealing world.

(The NYT did have an A1 story last week on the media circus surrounding the birth - frequently a sly way that papers try to both distance themselves from celebrity stories as well as cover them. That being the case, it was probably unlikely that this development gets A1. Follow-ups rarely do in the Times - for example, today's follow to a former A1 story about the possible torching of Picasso and Monet paintings by a Romanian art thief's mother is inside.)

 

I think it has to be 1A. I don't give a shit about it, but a lot of people do.