MS insisted on reading the RedEye at brunch this past Saturday, and because it was littered all over the ground, its weekend edition wrapped up to look like a real newspaper, we picked up a copy, and headed to Milk and Honey on Division.
Just got this "note" of intro from the new RedEye 2Do editor. As the Trib continues to lay off Pulitzer winning writers, and people covering wars here, and abroad, rest assured the new Web editor of the past two weeks over at the RedEye wants to hear all about "if any celebs visit your store" and all the other vomit-inducing news fit to tweet. If THIS is the future of traditional media, and of the much beloved Chicago Tribune, I don't give a rat's ass if it dies.
Update to RedEye2do
From: Red Eye 2do (redeye2do@hotmail.com)
Sent: Mon 5/18/09 10:44 AM
To: redeye2do@hotmail.com
Hi everyone,
My name is XXX and I've been doing 2do for the last few weeks and will continue to do so. I am also RedEye's new web editor. You can find me @crushgear. I'm sorry it took me so long to send out this email, but I wanted to get settled before I introduced myself.
1. Please continue sending your great events listings to us here!
2. UPDATE: We want your celebrity sightings! If any celebs visit your store, restaurant or institution, we would love to know.
3. UPDATE: You can tweet us your events or celeb sightings to @redeye2do on twitter.
Thanks!
Sincerely,
XX XXXX
Wow, you guys are assholes
ReplyDeleteSorry, Jared, we don't mean to come across as assholes, we just love, and miss news that we feel like is disappearing way too fast, along with writers that we've been following for decades. While I have no objection to the RedEye, I am wondering why it has to be so dumbed down that a Web editor is concerned with celebrity sightings.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Jared, some things are too dumb to be tolerated on a blog.
ReplyDeleteI guess that might apply to my last comment, too.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I don't understand about this post. And perhaps one of the 8 readers who actually go here can clarify for me. RedEye is about celebrities and pop culture, isn't it? So if an editor is asking about celebrity sightings, isn't that what that paper does the best? If you got that note from the Wall Street Journal, well, then I'd be questioning it too.
ReplyDeleteI read what you posted here from the web editor and it sounds like someone who took over a job who is introducing himself to the community. What's the point in bashing that person publicly? I'm just not getting it.
And perhaps the fact that the Web editor is talking about celebrity sightings shows that people are more interested in that than pulitzer prize winning writers.
Either way, someone sent me this link and I gotta tell ya - I think your posting was harsh, uncalled for and just downright unprofessional and rude. If you truly miss the news as you mentioned in the comment above, well, then do something about it. Don't bash the papers that are trying to do something different, right? I mean, why?
Tony-
ReplyDeleteI was not bashing that person publicly, and did not include his/her name... It was less about the person than about the fact it was a call for celebrity sightings and tweets, which my gut reaction was asking, "Is this email really from an editor from a newspaper, one that I grew up respecting and still read everyday??"
Secondly, there is more of a discussion on this topic going on over at the windycitizen.com (link, below) than here. I've posted, and commented on many sites for at least a few years, and only recently created a blog as a home base of sorts.
As for celebrity vs. pulitizer prize winning writers, we covered that on Windy Citizen. You're right, Tony, that's not what the Red Eye is, and I guess I shouldn't expect it to be anything more than what it is, yet if the RedEye is on the way to replacing the traditional Trib, as pulitizer prize winning and hardworking Trib reporters with decades of experience and thousands upon thousands of "followers" to their writings like myself are disappearing from front pages than that is what I am all riled up about, though I do apologize now for bashing the Red Eye, as it was out of turn.
I am just upset about the state of news today, and not at a new editor that is just part of a cog in a wheel, and perhaps just doing his job.
"If you truly miss the news as you mentioned in the comment above, well, then do something about it."
I am doing something about it, and write a weekly e-newsletter for members of my local chamber, and others in the neighborhood. News relevant to businesses, store openings, closings, sales, features on store owners, photos from the garden club, events etc. However, nothing I write will come close to fulfilling the purpose and intent of the kind of newsrooms that are no longer being funded, and disappearing. I know the difference between my non edited, and very modestly funded micro news, and the larger news at large, so to speak.
http://www.windycitizen.com/chicago/media/2009/05/18/as-if-we-didnt-already-know-where-redeyes-head-is#comments