Tuesday, February 14, 2006
See Our Already-Obvious Ad Inside!!! ;-)
I almost forgot to commend RedEye for its restraint today. No moronic Valentine's Day cover story! There is a VD-themed teaser for Metromix listings, which seems more or less appropriate, even though VD is more or less horseshit.
I was, however, irritated by a Starbucks ad stuck on the cover (in the form of a post-it note) to tease to a full-page ad inside. That's just overkill. I've always thought Red should try and be a little more like the Sun-Times, and I guess giving me extra ad crap to throw away is a start.
I was, however, irritated by a Starbucks ad stuck on the cover (in the form of a post-it note) to tease to a full-page ad inside. That's just overkill. I've always thought Red should try and be a little more like the Sun-Times, and I guess giving me extra ad crap to throw away is a start.
Maybe she read my advice
Christ-a-rooty. It seems I am doomed to cover the CTA-by-way-of-RedEye beat on this blog. It's always the public transit column with me.
As I said last week, I should acknowledge improvements in RedEye, especially in the features I complain about most often. In today's "Going Public" column, Kyra Kyles actually explores a controversy at both the rider and institutional level and does some reporting. This isn't quite Ben Joravksy's "The Works" column in the Reader, but it at least connects actual individual riders to CTA problems, which is more than I can say for most of Kyles's previous columns. It's good that she focused on a (huge but) specific part of the city and not just on generalities. The more specific, the better.
However, I'm still sore at Kyles for encouraging all this trite babble about how rude CTA riders are. She's emphasized it in at least two columns this year, and both yesterday's and today's "Reader Powerpoint" spaces were devoted to the subject. Yesterday, someone complained in "Powerpoint" about rude el riders; today, someone else wrote in saying the problem isn't all this bad. If you're going to run just one letter to the editor in each issue, you might want to switch the subject around every day--or at least pick a subject that's worth reading about. I have no idea what kind of power Reader Powerpoint can possibly create in its current form, so I am going to call it "Reader Circle Jerk" from now on.
As I said last week, I should acknowledge improvements in RedEye, especially in the features I complain about most often. In today's "Going Public" column, Kyra Kyles actually explores a controversy at both the rider and institutional level and does some reporting. This isn't quite Ben Joravksy's "The Works" column in the Reader, but it at least connects actual individual riders to CTA problems, which is more than I can say for most of Kyles's previous columns. It's good that she focused on a (huge but) specific part of the city and not just on generalities. The more specific, the better.
However, I'm still sore at Kyles for encouraging all this trite babble about how rude CTA riders are. She's emphasized it in at least two columns this year, and both yesterday's and today's "Reader Powerpoint" spaces were devoted to the subject. Yesterday, someone complained in "Powerpoint" about rude el riders; today, someone else wrote in saying the problem isn't all this bad. If you're going to run just one letter to the editor in each issue, you might want to switch the subject around every day--or at least pick a subject that's worth reading about. I have no idea what kind of power Reader Powerpoint can possibly create in its current form, so I am going to call it "Reader Circle Jerk" from now on.
