Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Staffer on the Street
I often forget about Red's "3 For All" feature. It's one of those features Red does that doesn't really distinguish itself, so when I see it I usually take a second to remember that I've seen it before, in that narrow little space on page 3. In "3 For All," three Red staffers say what they think about one of those urgent RedEye-type issues, today's being "How big is our appetite for Barry Bonds?"
So here's why this feature isn't interesting:
1) The questions tend to be inane.
2) There's really no reason for the reader to value the staffers' opinions over someone else's. Sure, the staffers at least know how to write for a newspaper, but we really have no idea where they're coming from or what qualifies them to answer a given question in a useful way. It's like the heads Red has been putting on its regular colums, blaring names like GREENFIELD and KYLES as if the names were as familiar and revered as ROYKO. (There are better ways to give these columns identities, like nicknaming them after a subject they're supposed to cover. Red's already done this with the Going Public column, etc.)
3) They really don't say anything interesting. There are usually a few easy, predictable ways to answer a given question, and there are no surprises here.
4) It doesn't make up for the lack of a solid opinion page in Red.
Maybe Red shouldn't rely on its staffers to provide all the opinion. I think that's only fair. In the interest of pluralism, it could expand and improve this feature with quotes gathered from syndicated columnists, sources' comments in wire news stories, bloggers, man-on-the-street interviews, and so on. It would serve the same function "3 For All" serves and keep it a little fresher at the same time.
So here's why this feature isn't interesting:
1) The questions tend to be inane.
2) There's really no reason for the reader to value the staffers' opinions over someone else's. Sure, the staffers at least know how to write for a newspaper, but we really have no idea where they're coming from or what qualifies them to answer a given question in a useful way. It's like the heads Red has been putting on its regular colums, blaring names like GREENFIELD and KYLES as if the names were as familiar and revered as ROYKO. (There are better ways to give these columns identities, like nicknaming them after a subject they're supposed to cover. Red's already done this with the Going Public column, etc.)
3) They really don't say anything interesting. There are usually a few easy, predictable ways to answer a given question, and there are no surprises here.
4) It doesn't make up for the lack of a solid opinion page in Red.
Maybe Red shouldn't rely on its staffers to provide all the opinion. I think that's only fair. In the interest of pluralism, it could expand and improve this feature with quotes gathered from syndicated columnists, sources' comments in wire news stories, bloggers, man-on-the-street interviews, and so on. It would serve the same function "3 For All" serves and keep it a little fresher at the same time.
