The two main daily papers in Chicago, the Tribune and the Sun-Times, each have a “hip” little daily tabloid publication that’s geared towards the young city-dwelling crowd. The Tribune’s paper is called Red Eye, and the Sun-Times’ is called Red Streak.
These papers basically take the top 10 news stories and squish ’em down into bite-sized paragraphs with a bunch of splashy graphics and prose like “Saddam’s sons were rolling in the Benjamins before they got iced.” And there’s always a huge entertainment section so you can see big, color photos of, let’s say, George Clooney while he was in town last week. Imagine a Weekly Reader for grownups and you’ll have the idea. The paper is either given away or sold on the street for a quarter.
I dunno. If I were in the target demographic for this paper I’d be kind of insulted. I don’t want to see a newspaper trying to relate to me in my own vernacular. It reminds me of Sister Sandra Marie in eighth grade telling us all to sit in a circle on the floor for a “rap session.” Don’t try to relate, just inform me.
The reason I brought this up is because there’s a guy who’s on the corner in front of the Sears Tower (well, kitty-cornered from it) who sells Red Eye, and every morning he seems to get louder and less intelligible as he calls out the headlines. He seems like a pleasant enough guy, and when he speaks to people in his normal voice, it’s very clear. I always have trouble understanding what he’s shouting every day. As a result, I decided to make a daily brainteaser out of figuring out what he’s saying: sharpening up the mental pencil, as it were.
This morning, I heard this: “Ywwouurrrrrrdaaaarrrrgghhhhreeeeeedahhhhhhhhrahhheeeerrrrrrre…” It took a second, but I realized he said, “Your Daily Red Eye right here.” That was an easy one.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll let you know what I heard at the northwest corner of Adams and Wacker.
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The two Chicago dailies have become painfully aware that they’re not hitting the 18 – 24 market. Good for them. In order to recapture the market, they’ve fixed a few of the problems with newspapers:
1. Newspapers are Too Big. I remember seeing my dad sitting in his La-Z-Boy, reading a regular broadsheet paper. If I wanted to do the same, I had to spread the thing out on the floor and shift my body based on which part of the page I wanted to read. You know what? I still can’t handle a full-size newspaper. RedEye and Red Streak are helping us out with the “hipper” (um, not really, but easier) tabloid size.
2. Newspapers are Boring. Cheaper color is fixing this, but there is still a lot of text on the cover of your average newspaper. I haven’t seen the cover of Red Streak, but I like RedEye’s cover–one big full-color graphic draws attention, more like a magazine than a newspaper.
Here are the problems with newspapers that neither of these papers have addressed:
1. Newspapers are Dirty. This is a peeve of mine, and deserves subheadings:
a. Ink on Hands. Disgusting. Little grey fingerprints on a pristine white Apple keyboard, little grey streaks if you reach up to scratch your nose.
b. Paper. You print a whole new paper every day? That’s insanely wasteful. Sure, this paper is easily recycleable, but between its first life and its second life, it’s just more clutter.
2. Newspapers are Old. The minute they get printed, they’re out of date. Why would I buy a newspaper for yesterday’s news when I can go to Google news and get the stuff that came off the AP Wire 10 minutes ago?
3. Newspapers are Biased. They must be, and it’s okay that they are. The only way to get a balanced view of news is to read from several sources. Get the scoop on the latest story from NPR, the NY Times, Fox News, and the AP, and you have probably heard all the angles. This is another great thing about clearinghouse news sources like Google.
4. Newspapers are Not Interactive. Don’t even talk to me about letters to the editor. I mean, letters are fine, but they’re nothing like a TV or radio interview, a call-in show, or an online forum.
My prediction: “hipper” newspapers will not get us back. I still like books and magazines, but if you think about it, there’s no good reason to continue printing something that has to be reprinted every single day.
Now where was I going with all this? I’m looking back at it, and it just seems like a random torrent of negativity about newspapers. Which it is.
Oh, yes. The “Reds.” I went to these websites hoping to sample some of the writing you described, and found none. But based on what you say of them, I think they’re taking the wrong approach by trying to simplify/condense/sensationalize the news. The problem is not that we Gen Y’ers (which I technically am, but I feel more like an X’er) don’t care about or can’t understand “real” news. The problem is that this particular medium is becoming obsolete, and I don’t think they can make it seem “cool” in the face of better media, any more than shiny silver tape cases would have made tapes seem as cool as CDs.
The end. Sorry to leave a comment longer than your blog, Joe. 🙂