Kicking it while it's down
I hate to pile on the newspaper industry, because god knows it has enough on its plate these days in remaining relevant and all that. But wow does the new revamp of the San Antonio Express-News suck.
They launched it a few weeks ago and I tried not to judge. But seriously it's like reading my college newspaper. In fact, I think my college newspaper might be thicker than the Express-News. They fired a ton of people, including 75 reporters, so obviously budget was an issue. But the powers that be shrunk it down and slimmed it so it's like reading the freebie paper that only has real estate listings. Plus they cut back on a lot of the features (wherefore art thou, food section?), yet somehow the comics pages went from two to three pages.
The funny thing, if that can be said about this, was what happened with the comics. They got rid of a few that I really liked ("My Cage" is actually fairly clever) and also a few of the columns that regularly run in that section, including the bridge column, Billy Graham's column, and Dr. Phil Donahue's column (who answers medical questions that seemed geared primarily toward seniors). The last three were gone, no exaggeration, for three days. Apparently San Antonio's retirement communities went up in FLAMES about these being missing and inundated the paper's mailbox with complaints. You do not mess with the bridge column, is what I learned from all this.
Yet "Peanuts" still staggers on...albeit in a greatly reduced form. I have great vision when it comes to reading and even I find the font on it nearly impossible to read. Talk about a hearty fuck-you to the people who insisted that it continue to moulder away on the comics pages.
They launched it a few weeks ago and I tried not to judge. But seriously it's like reading my college newspaper. In fact, I think my college newspaper might be thicker than the Express-News. They fired a ton of people, including 75 reporters, so obviously budget was an issue. But the powers that be shrunk it down and slimmed it so it's like reading the freebie paper that only has real estate listings. Plus they cut back on a lot of the features (wherefore art thou, food section?), yet somehow the comics pages went from two to three pages.
The funny thing, if that can be said about this, was what happened with the comics. They got rid of a few that I really liked ("My Cage" is actually fairly clever) and also a few of the columns that regularly run in that section, including the bridge column, Billy Graham's column, and Dr. Phil Donahue's column (who answers medical questions that seemed geared primarily toward seniors). The last three were gone, no exaggeration, for three days. Apparently San Antonio's retirement communities went up in FLAMES about these being missing and inundated the paper's mailbox with complaints. You do not mess with the bridge column, is what I learned from all this.
Yet "Peanuts" still staggers on...albeit in a greatly reduced form. I have great vision when it comes to reading and even I find the font on it nearly impossible to read. Talk about a hearty fuck-you to the people who insisted that it continue to moulder away on the comics pages.
posted by Her Ladyship @ 12:17 PM
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