Another shaky step by the O
Have you noticed that the O now runs little headshots of its reporters next to their bylines? I'm not sure that's such a great idea. The reporters are smiling, even when the stories are tragic:
Navas looks as though she just left a party at the American Legion hall, not as though she just watched it burn to the ground.
Maximum Maxine at least looks a little less enthused, but even so, she's writing of murder while looking like she just won the pie-off:
If you were going to do this right, you'd have three different headshots of each reporter to pick from, depending on the nature of the story. But then again, what does the reporter's likeness have to do with a news story, as opposed to a column?
They'll get the hang of this intertubes thing over there one of these days.
| Posted at 10:43 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (6)
Navas' photo reminds me of that pic of the little girl (search for firestarter girl) with a devilish smile in front of a burning house that made the rounds on the net several years ago.
Posted by JS | July 5, 2010 11:23 AM
They started doing this on some sports stories and some community life stories in the local print edition of The Bulletin. It's been mostly on fluff pieces, but they'd still be what I'd consider "News" vs "Opinion" and it looks silly, to be honest.
Posted by Jake | July 5, 2010 12:55 PM
And if they don't get the hang of it, well, they'll just close down the postings from folks who point out their faults...
Posted by seymourglass | July 5, 2010 1:45 PM
It's news I tell ya.. it's just soft news... gotta have the right appeal ya know.... The Zero sucks hard.... and blows (I will leave it to individual imaginations)
Posted by LucsAdvo | July 5, 2010 3:05 PM
I wish they'd get the hang of it sooner. The latest thing is I now get taken to an annoying mobile version of a story when I click on it from the normal version in the web browser on my iPhone. Has anyone else noticed this?
The mobile version doesn't include the comments which I sometimes like to read - usually for the humor. You can click on the option for "Full Web Version" at the bottom of the mobile page and it will take you to it and all the comments, but it's a total pain.
I don't know. Maybe there's a way to turn that automatic flip to mobile version off?
Posted by Lewis | July 6, 2010 1:15 AM
What gets me is this presumption that people want to see pictures of the reporters, especially in the case of poorly written stories. The same goes double for editors, and the only time I want to see a picture of a newspaper publisher, other than in a story with the words "Indicted" and "Convicted" in 60-point type in the headline, is in an ad for condoms.
Interestingly, I note how this seems to work in waves at publications. The crew at the Dallas Observer, after it was purchased by Village Voice Media, actually paid for bus banners showing photos of its "star" reporters. The only thing it did was make it easier to spit on the music and movie columnists when they were spotted in public.
Posted by Texas Triffid Ranch | July 6, 2010 3:56 PM