TJ Simers slams rival paper

Obviously you've been drinking the Kool-Aid heavily.

The readers scan headlines to decide what they are going to read. It's been proved time and time again. You must have missed that bulletin, or you chose to ignore it so you could focus on what you want to focus on.

And judging from your posts, I'm quite sure you spend more than two hours picking your ass.

 

As someone who specialized in words and specialized in design at various times, I think there's no question that today's emphasis on design has resulted in worse editing, even at large newspapers where the two jobs aren't being done by the same people. I doubt anyone can convince me this isn't the case. I happen to have enjoyed both jobs, but I do think the emphasis on design has cost newspapers credibility. If I owned a paper I would spend more money on editing than on making it pretty, although I would not go out of my way to make it ugly.

Also, I don't believe there's any proof that fancy designs help readers navigate the papers or make the paper a more appealing purchase. Certainly A-1 in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and even Los Angeles Times and Washington Post are throwbacks and not especially fancy or even attractive, although I assume their lack of graphic intensity are a successful branding device because people can instantly identify the papers on a newsstand. So I wouldn't say those papers ignore design on A-1, rather that their lack of it is intended to make a statement to readers about what the papers value, content over sizzle. And their archaic look doesn't seem to turn off readers. I don't believe that ugly papers that suddenly became pretty papers (and I can think of a few) have noticed any sustained circulation increases as a result, at least not unless accompanied by an improvement in content at the same time.

You can react to DyePack being a bit repetitious, but he isn't wrong.

 

If a metro daily sports section has, let's say, 12 pages, there's nothing wrong with devoting 30-35 inches on page 2 to a guy like Simers. Not every single story in the section has to be Pulitzer material. Sports is a fantasy world; it allows for a little shtick. It's not like the L.A. Times is dominating every page with Simers-like material.