The day I run into a Huffington Post reporter at a Baltimore zoning board hearing is the day I will no longer be worried about journalism.
”David Simon, former Baltimore City Sun reporter who later created the HBO series “The Wire,” on the NYTimes Opinionator blog.
If everyone is so mad and frustrated about A.I.G. and the job losses and the recession, where are the riots? Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociology prof from Columbia, makes an interesting case for why there probably won't be an uprising no matter how bad it gets. My gut reaction would have been to blame the unbecoming miasma of apathy and self-interest in the United States, coupled with the fact that our middle class is still much better off than any other middle class at any point in history. Then I would have made some sort of joke about how 66% of Americans are too fat to wield a pitchfork, anyway.
Pillowfight 2008 in Justin Herman Plaza
I think I am, although the former newspaperwoman in me will miss judging the design choices the layout team makes every Sunday. ("Oh, really? A highly-stylized front-page above-the-fold Michael Moritz shot? Touché, NYT.") The most recent Week In Review front page was laugh out loud funny:
To be fair, the online version has always been at the forefront of the transition from print to web - there's no end of thoughtfully produced interactive graphics to be found in various nooks and crannies of the site (see "Is it better to buy or rent?" and "The geography of a recession" to start), and even basic articles are incorporating small touches like mouse-over-able images:
(from "Brooklyn's New Culinary Movement")
Only time will tell if these bells and whistles will make up for what's lost or only cushion the blow.
So I sit down with the front page of the dead-tree version of the Arts section this morning, coffee in hand, and I read the following paragraph:
The Sherlock Holmes of “Sherlock Holmes,” which is scheduled for release on Nov. 13, will not be wearing a deerstalker hat. Nor will he be wearing an Inverness overcoat, the kind with the dashing cloak that hangs over the shoulders as extra protection against the English rain. Sometimes — as in one fight scene — he will not even be wearing a shirt. (This gives Mr. Downey a chance to show off his admirably chiseled abs.)
Obviously, reading this puts one and one thought only in my head: Robert Downey Jr's abs. But I gamely read on. I'm getting down to the jump, and of course I'm going to follow it and finish the article; it's a perfectly fine article about updating the legend, here's talk about the 1930s version, here's a jab at the director's ex-wife.
And then I turn to page 13 and lo and behold what encompasses the top third of the page but:
BOOYEAH GRAY LADY.
I'm not saying it's the only reason. But it's a good one.
...because we went to San Luis Obispo for Thanksgiving and bought a pie and some whipped cream from Albertsons and we finished the pie but not the whipped cream and, well, waste not want not. But then I turned to page 20 in the NYT Sunday Styles and who's glowering at me from the left column but one of my eight bosses (and his lovely family), obviously unhappy to be in his least favorite newspaper ever?
It's all Sugar Inc., all the time; even dead-tree media is no respite.
