The Death of Journalism: Episode VI, Attack of the Drones

If newspapers are dying you need look no further than the one left in my driveway this morning to find out why.

I’m not even going to give you the Web link, because doing so would only be another number for this paper to count as it’s very own. In fact, I’m not going to mention the paper’s name either, for the same reason.

Suffice to say, it was not the Tribune or the Sun-Times but as amusing as when
the big boy papers went ape shit over Queen of All Media Oprah Winfrey
castigating her author buddy for fibbing in his memoirs. (Honey, like that
hasn't been going on since Truman Capote fell in love with a cold-blooded killer.).

The Trib covered it the way the Sun-Times usually covers a Bears game.

Anyway, back to my story.

This paper has been turning up in my driveway for well over a month, though I do not subscribe to it. That’s because papers are allowed to do something called a sampling where they deliver free copies for up to two months which they can count as circulation. How just putting the paper in my driveway is supposed to make me want it is beyond me. There’s not even anything with it telling me how to subscribe or offering any incentives to do so.

Today’s issue was especially innocuous and hard to tell apart from The Onion. Actually, that would be a fun game: look at a headline and tell if it’s from a “real” paper or one made up for the comic one.

Above the fold in today’s issue were three stories, one told mostly through pictures.

On the left was “Buzzer rats on kids in myspace,” about a school district where alarms go off on computers if students access friendship Web sites such as My Space. Not only is this not related to studying, officials said, it also is potentially dangerous because Internet predators lurk among posts about bands and other teenage stuff just waiting to lure kids to sex and death.

Not one student was interviewed for the story, essentially one I like to call a “when bad things (might) happen to white people” tale.

The middle story is about a rock, scissors, paper tournament coming up at a suburban Chicago college this weekend. “A cutthroat battle” cries the headline. See Page 5 for the story.

The other above the fold story is about a nightclub in Elgin that has been hosting so-called reality TV show “stars” over the next few weeks. Heavy-hitters from the likes of Real World Austin and Laguna Beach.

What makes the story even funnier is the straightforward tone in which what is basically a free ad for this club is told, playing on the club owners claim that Elgin is the Las Vegas of the Midwest.

Yeah, and I’m the Bruce Willis of the Northwest suburbs.

This paper loves stories about locals who go on reality TV shows, treating them with admiration and respect as if they actually had talent. Never do they ask if such drizzle brains feel used and embarrassed afterward or if (especially in the case of young women) they felt exploited or used as sex objects.

Nah, the market research wouldn’t allow that. And papers like this are all about the market research, what some focus group said readers want.

Never mind if you are a real journalist you should grill reality TV knuckleheads (if you pay any attention to them at all) about the one of the basic question from j-school :Why?

Actually, you should beg your editors to write editorials demanding such people be spied upon by the Bush Administration and sent to Guantanamo or be conscripted into military service.

To be fair, the paper had two other stories started on the front page: “Can United fly on its own?” (this paper is big on using question marks in headlines). It fails to mention the despicable aspect of the story, that United screwed its workers, getting them to take big pay and benefits cuts, while bosses are walking away with a $15 million package for their role in the turnaround.

The other tale: someone wants to build a working farm yuppies can go to for vacations out in the far northwest suburbs.

Like I said, it’s just like The Onion. It’s funnier, because some boss thinks this is the news people want. The research says so.

I need to get into a new line of work.