Is there any irony in the fact that the Chicago Tribune's newly redesigned Web site, unveiled today, made it difficult to find an online version of a story, not just any story, but instead a poignantly written cover feature about perfectly good, well built, still drivable vehicles being sentenced to death, a casualty of the government's immensely popular "Cash for Clunkers" program, offering a $4500 voucher toward the purchase of a newer, more fuel efficient vehicle provided that the clunker, and its emissions, will never drive again, or, in other words smashed, rendered to scrap.
A boon for pollution activists? Or new car manufacturer lobbyists? It was another side of the Cash for Clunkers program that I was not aware of, as I had only heard about it from my mother. She'd heard the ads on the radio, and was urging me to check it out. As I sometimes do, I went to the Trib site, the newspaper in my hand, and intended to link the Trib story to my Facebook page to hopefully prompt some discussion on the story among virtual acquaintances.
The top stories on the newly redesigned page involved a Chicago Blackhawk arrested for robbery, and assaulting a cab driver, an update on a dog fight, and a bunch of other stuff that was not on the front page of today's paper. I had to scroll a bit, and keep my eyes fixated on the busily designed screen to find the online version of writer Robert Channick's story.
Is news dying, too, just like the well built automobile cars of yesterday, its fate in the hands of younger, more-efficient-or willing- to- give-it-up -for-free writers? Or, does one just have to look a bit harder to find the kind of news they are used to reading, and expect from their city's top newspaper? It's also possible that the new design ranks stories by their popularity, and amount of clicks, which can be a dangerous thing when all the top pages are full of gossip.
It looks like I'm not alone in not being a fan of the new site. I clicked on "provide feedback," which should have just had a slew of comments like a story normally does. The extra click took me to a second screen that looked like a mommy blogger forum, with threads, and filed comments, which again required MORE clicking just to view the comments. Any site designer knows, the more clicks, the less likely a person will keep clicking. Did they construct the feedback portion of their site with that design tenant in mind??? It's a good thing that some people decided to put clear indicators of disapproval on their subject headers, using language like, "IF IT'S NOT BROKE, DON'T FIX IT."
In more irony, when I clicked on feedback, the url actually changed to an entirely different one: http://getsatisfaction.com/chicago_tribune
Get satisfaction? Maybe it's the heat, or the blisters on my foot, or other situations, but at least newspaper wise, I am confidant in saying I can't get no satisfaction online-- just yet. Now, off to read the newspaper version of the Tribune, which is so much different than the version I just linked. Why do I have a feeling one of these versions is playing for keeps, and it's not the one I care about?
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