Crunk out the newspapers

I’m not always proud to admit it, but I work for a newspaper. In this business, there’s quite a bit of navel gazing and self-analysis -- and ill-conceived attempts to get more people to read papers again.

This means there are seminars hosted by colleges, think tanks, and/or marketing groups which somehow are supposed to lead us out of our circulation ruts.

As the world, or at least this part of it, is obsessed with youth, most of the time it’s about how to get younger readers.

Such is how the world winds up with those Red papers in Chicago -- aimed at that all important pain-in-the-ass 18-35 demographic. Because it’s really important to get people who find so-called reality TV entertaining to read your paper (cuz they must be so fucking stupid they’ll buy anything advertised).

An aside: Have you seen MTV’s Laguna Beach? No wonder radical Muslims hate us. I watched 15 minutes and I wanted to blow something up (ONLY JOKING OF COURSE, MR. NSA DUDE WHO MONITORS THE WEB). It’s like, about these totally hot high school seniors, and like the hot guys and like everyone is blonde and like you know it’s so awesome to be rich and in high school and have plastic surgery looks and everything handed to you on a silver platter and like all you can fucking ever talk about is dating.

Example of how papers are trying: We recently ran an AP story that I wouldn’t even force the worst guy at Git-Mo to have to read. A 22-year-old wrote a first person account of how to set up your own pod cast on the Net. It read like a goddamn cake recipe.
Most newspapers are run by and for white people, most of whom were hopelessly out of it from the start, so the above is what they think is edgy.

But I say, if they want to go that route, why not embrace hip-hop culture instead of dumbass pretty white people.

Joking around at work we thought a crunk version of our paper would be fresh fly, Freddie. We even gave all the towns new names:

Aurora - A-Town, where the badasses all come from

Elgin -- E-Town, where the A-Town wannabes are

West Dundee - the WD

East Dundee - E to the D

Hampshire - Hzzzhire

Gilberts - the G

Naperville -- Vanilla Village or NPV

Carpentersville -- Da Ville

Hoffman Estates -- h’states

Schaumburg -- Blingburg

It’s a start, homes.