Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Right Subject, No Sources
I often complain about Kyra Kyles's "Going Public" column. So I'm glad to acknowledge that her column today at least begins to do one thing a transit column should do -- talk about other transit systems.
Kyles finds that the CTA can learn from New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority, but apparently not too much. The MTA's plastic-padded seats, light-up train maps and supposedly polite riders would be welcome improvements, of course, but it takes a lot of stretching to get a full column from Kyles's reporting. First, she says she observed the MTA while on vacation, as if her learning about the MTA were incidental. Second, she says that this was "a few weeks ago," which means she had time to do follow-up reporting and develop other angles -- How many other transit systems share these features? Has the CTA ever considered such improvements? If they are relatively common, why doesn't the CTA have them? Will the new cars due out within the next few years offer them (that press release says they'll have upholstered inserts)? What are some practical and institutional reasons we don't have them now?
There's about five minutes' worth of reporting in the actual column. The Tribune proper would never run a transit column this poorly sourced. So why does it run in an edition aimed specifically at commuters?
Even a call to the CTA's press office, which I admit isn't always very helpful, might add something.
CTA Tattler has discussed the problems and potential costs of El's fuzzy seat pads.
And speaking of the maps, why not point out that the CTA recently replaced its onboard maps -- with new maps that are identical to the old ones except for an updated CTA logo?
Kyles finds that the CTA can learn from New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority, but apparently not too much. The MTA's plastic-padded seats, light-up train maps and supposedly polite riders would be welcome improvements, of course, but it takes a lot of stretching to get a full column from Kyles's reporting. First, she says she observed the MTA while on vacation, as if her learning about the MTA were incidental. Second, she says that this was "a few weeks ago," which means she had time to do follow-up reporting and develop other angles -- How many other transit systems share these features? Has the CTA ever considered such improvements? If they are relatively common, why doesn't the CTA have them? Will the new cars due out within the next few years offer them (that press release says they'll have upholstered inserts)? What are some practical and institutional reasons we don't have them now?
There's about five minutes' worth of reporting in the actual column. The Tribune proper would never run a transit column this poorly sourced. So why does it run in an edition aimed specifically at commuters?
Even a call to the CTA's press office, which I admit isn't always very helpful, might add something.
CTA Tattler has discussed the problems and potential costs of El's fuzzy seat pads.
And speaking of the maps, why not point out that the CTA recently replaced its onboard maps -- with new maps that are identical to the old ones except for an updated CTA logo?
the good, the bad, and the ennui
Scott and I were recently interviewed for an article on Thanks RedEye! for the premiere journal of the newspaper industry, Editor & Publisher. One of the things I tried to get across in the interview was that we do actually intend our criticism of Red to be constructive, not just nitpicking. Therefore, before I hit the complaints, I should say that there were two features in Red today (er, yesterday, by now) that I actually enjoyed.
First, the piece on sites that allow users to upload video (think Flickr for vids) actually seemed relevant to young people’s lives. True, they had to throw in a strange celebrity sidebar; and true, they really should have saved this and made it a cover story. But not bad overall.
I’m afraid I may also be taking a liking to Jimmy Greenfield. He wrote the review of Superbowl commercials that ran near the main sports story on the game. For those of us who don’t care that much about football, commercials have always been a good way of making this story relevant. I also think Red found a way of talking about all the commercials in a way that was funny, not boring. I even liked the “alternate RedEye endings.”
Oh, but don’t think you’re going to get off light today, Red. Not at all. First, a brief complaint about Liz Crokin. I don’t mind gossip columns at all -- who don’t appreciate a site like Gawker, for instance. But Crokin’s writing is, as far as I can tell, completely incoherent. It seems like she’s combined the worst of the “check out my trendy friends” style of the Reader’s Chicago Antisocial with Red’s sound-bite writing. I read her column three times to try to figure out if there was any sort of narrative or pattern or plan to it, and I mostly hurt my brain. Please, someone tell me if they can make any sense of this.
Similar story for the “celebrity engagement exit poll” a few pages in from the back. This story is funny enough as it goes, but the design seemed a little odd to me. I asked Wes, our resident design guru about it, and he said it wasn’t an atrocious design -- but then he pointed out what had actually been bothering me. This story could have been illustrated by Google Image. Take the random album covers thrown into the poll, for instance. Sure, this story happens to briefly mention Satan’s favorite single, “My Humps” by the Black-Eyed Peas. But does that call for an illo? Hardly.
Also: Since I’m late in my entry today, I considered filling in for Tuesday... happened to notice the lead, “Another day, another dis song” on the back of today’s paper. Maybe we were all wrong about Red. Maybe it’s actually a brilliant satirical experiment in which a group of journos create an entire publication centered around fad stories and celebrity gossip then feign world-weariness over the banality of celebrity lives. Perhaps they’re like the nobles of the French court, who struggled to show how unimpressed they were with fireworks brought in by Louis XIV. Or perhaps they’re just letting us know how bored they actually are...
First, the piece on sites that allow users to upload video (think Flickr for vids) actually seemed relevant to young people’s lives. True, they had to throw in a strange celebrity sidebar; and true, they really should have saved this and made it a cover story. But not bad overall.
I’m afraid I may also be taking a liking to Jimmy Greenfield. He wrote the review of Superbowl commercials that ran near the main sports story on the game. For those of us who don’t care that much about football, commercials have always been a good way of making this story relevant. I also think Red found a way of talking about all the commercials in a way that was funny, not boring. I even liked the “alternate RedEye endings.”
Oh, but don’t think you’re going to get off light today, Red. Not at all. First, a brief complaint about Liz Crokin. I don’t mind gossip columns at all -- who don’t appreciate a site like Gawker, for instance. But Crokin’s writing is, as far as I can tell, completely incoherent. It seems like she’s combined the worst of the “check out my trendy friends” style of the Reader’s Chicago Antisocial with Red’s sound-bite writing. I read her column three times to try to figure out if there was any sort of narrative or pattern or plan to it, and I mostly hurt my brain. Please, someone tell me if they can make any sense of this.
Similar story for the “celebrity engagement exit poll” a few pages in from the back. This story is funny enough as it goes, but the design seemed a little odd to me. I asked Wes, our resident design guru about it, and he said it wasn’t an atrocious design -- but then he pointed out what had actually been bothering me. This story could have been illustrated by Google Image. Take the random album covers thrown into the poll, for instance. Sure, this story happens to briefly mention Satan’s favorite single, “My Humps” by the Black-Eyed Peas. But does that call for an illo? Hardly.
Also: Since I’m late in my entry today, I considered filling in for Tuesday... happened to notice the lead, “Another day, another dis song” on the back of today’s paper. Maybe we were all wrong about Red. Maybe it’s actually a brilliant satirical experiment in which a group of journos create an entire publication centered around fad stories and celebrity gossip then feign world-weariness over the banality of celebrity lives. Perhaps they’re like the nobles of the French court, who struggled to show how unimpressed they were with fireworks brought in by Louis XIV. Or perhaps they’re just letting us know how bored they actually are...
