The Ghost of Newspapers Future:Republic gets "simple"

The tricky thing with the page 2 format they use is that very few people can write in the funny/informal style and make it work. Bob Young can do it very well, so the page works. There are others who fill in and it's just agony to read.

Oh, and the Monday page two is now completely unreadable. They decided to make it flashier. It's all color and looks like it was created by someone whose chief design experience is car ads touting a 4th of July Sell-a-bration.

The Republic sports section is a mixed bag. There are several people there who are very good. There is one with a fairly prominent gig who is wholly incapable of writing a sentence in recognizable English. It also tends to be too cheerleaderish, and if there is anything negative connected to a local team you can bet the East Valley tribune will be the one to report it first.

 

That's pretty vivid.

 

I wouldn't go that far, but the color version can be difficult to read, yes.

That notwithstanding, the point is newspapers should be trying to cultivate those types of writers, the ones who can pull it off, instead of making cutback after cutback and driving more of these types of writers into blogs and other non-newspaper forms of writing. This isn't a BLOGS! post but just pointing out that there will always be a place for someone who can write smart sports humor that isn't the type of vulgar garbage you can find on some message boards. It's just too bad that most newspapers can't seem to find the proper forum for that on a daily basis, instead of some stupid Sunday page.

 

I meant your description was vivid, I meant nice line.

 

PC said that, not me. I think the color version can be difficult to read but it doesn't look like a handicapped person did it or anything.