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Topic: Miscellaneous items
Date/Time: 6/20/2008 7:40:18 AM
Title: "They've stripped the vowels out of stories"
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
Lee Abrams parody memo #1

Lee's Blog
June 18, 2008
THINK PIECE: THE REVOL-YOU-TION IS GOING SRONG

Just came back from Hartford and a visit with the Courant. I was expecting some progress, but I was BLOWN away by what they had created. No "tweaks" here: they've stripped all the vowels out of stories. Saves lots of space. Before I joined Tribune, I had NO IDEA that there were different kinds of letters!! Bosnia and Serbia just have consonants, and they are WAY over the top cool, with ethnic cleaning and stuff … This is some serious re-invention in full motion that symbolizes an altitude we need in all our nespapers, TV stations, web sites and reel estate holdings. They know how to market a STAR, like Katie Courant – name the paper after 'em. Hits the READER like a 2×4.

* GREEN. Before I joined Tribune, I had NO idea that newspapers were made out of TREES … And the paper never told me because it "assumed" I knew. Hell, papers should have photos of lumberjacks cutting down big oaks, standing next to smiling squirrels and owls …Put it above the stories on the front: "This paper is brought to you by the White Oak — Illinois' State Tree”. People DON'T know that you have REAL trees exclusively being turned into pulp, because we ASSUME they do.

* INTELIGENT, NOT ELITE. Newspapers strike me as being a little TOO NPR. I like NPR and listen to "A Prairie Home Companion" all the time and once did a circle jerk with Garrison Keilor. But who wants to be like a radio network that listeners enjoy so much that they just GIVE THEM MONEY every year??? Morning News Radio has a lot of similarities to papers: Similar target audience: people pissed off, stuck in their cars waiting for the next trafic update to be broadcast, talking on their PHONES until the news is over. It's probably a good thing to study the feel of a well honed All News Radio station. Too bad there ain't one .…. I like the New York Post too, but it also can be a bit elitist, calling the police commissioner the "commish" and all, and printing nice titty pictures. It's all about being smart … not intelectual. WE have that oportunity.

* REMEDIAL READING ROCKS. We are rife with assumptions.. That people will find great stories … that people like reading … that people know how to read. Hell, before I joined Tribune, I read at a SECOND-grade level. "Curious George" and "Green Eegs and Ham" were too hard. Don’t ASSUME your readers can read … or WANT TO. No one wants to listen to All News Radio, but they have to if they want to know if it’s an overturned bus or a car fire that’s got them stuck on the 405 for an hour. There are 25 million functionally illiterate Americans, and I’ll BET most of them don't even read a newspaper! We can OWN that market if we set our mind to it.

* LEANER STAFF. The Courant has figured out how to keep putting out 300 pages per reporter while laying most of them off. They have a win-win: BIGGER FONT. They use a 24 pt Alburtus Extra Bold! Hits ‘em like a 2 x 4, especially the old geezers whoz eyes are going…. They understand that a death spiral is bad only if we ASSUME it is. Rock n Roll knows that. No one would still be listening to the Doors if Jim Morrison hadn’t snorted too much coke and died in a French bathtub. WE can be the Jimi Hendrix of media, DROWNED in our own puke, and DELIVER it in 21st century terms right onto our readers' shoes.

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