Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Transit vs. Tunes
Tuesday is my day to post on TRE, and it's also the day that Kyra Kyles's column runs in Red, so it's always tempting for me to just rag on Kyles by default. I'm only doing it again today because I found a superior example of how to write a rider-friendly CTA column--on Chicagoist.
After skimming Kyles's column--in which she proposes a playlist of crappy songs for crappy CTA situations, I found Chicagoist's post about a new bus-tracking system the CTA will be testing this year. Its headline, "The CTA Approaches Efficieny Zen," is a tad acquiescent, but the post itself does several of the things a transit column should ideally do:
1. Break news--which ran in the Chicago Sun-Times but not in Red or the Trib.
2. Express an opinion (or at least ask some critical questions)
3. Talk about other transit systems
4. Propose other policies or solutions to the given problem
Plus it doesn't advise us to listen to any Aerosmith songs.
ALSO: USA Today brings us this story about how newspaper companies are diversifying. Way down at the bottom there's a few paragraphs about mini-dailies, which say traditional reporters criticize minis' "obsession with local entertainment and pop culture." That's not a thorough way of summing it up. Red and other minis should cover pop culture and local entertainment, but should find an approach more interesting than that of US Weekly. And even if Red did that, there'd be plenty of work to do on the paper's presentation of hard news and opinion.
After skimming Kyles's column--in which she proposes a playlist of crappy songs for crappy CTA situations, I found Chicagoist's post about a new bus-tracking system the CTA will be testing this year. Its headline, "The CTA Approaches Efficieny Zen," is a tad acquiescent, but the post itself does several of the things a transit column should ideally do:
1. Break news--which ran in the Chicago Sun-Times but not in Red or the Trib.
2. Express an opinion (or at least ask some critical questions)
3. Talk about other transit systems
4. Propose other policies or solutions to the given problem
Plus it doesn't advise us to listen to any Aerosmith songs.
ALSO: USA Today brings us this story about how newspaper companies are diversifying. Way down at the bottom there's a few paragraphs about mini-dailies, which say traditional reporters criticize minis' "obsession with local entertainment and pop culture." That's not a thorough way of summing it up. Red and other minis should cover pop culture and local entertainment, but should find an approach more interesting than that of US Weekly. And even if Red did that, there'd be plenty of work to do on the paper's presentation of hard news and opinion.
