Posted 4:21 PM by Gene

WHY KNIGHTRIDDER'S FOR SALE: Nearly two years ago I predicted the news biz would stumble and fall over itself seeking gimmicks to goose circulation, things like "graphical news stories, and graffiti-mural stories, and news raps, and pop stars as columnists." While we haven't seen such nightmares (yet) we're headed there. Today's Saturday/Sunday StinkyInky continues a recent tradition of turning its front page into a DayGlo-like come-on, with a plug for THE GREATEST WORK OF ART OF ALL TIME, and a big publicity photo to boost the plug taking up the whole top half of the page; below the fold a sports story with photo takes up two-thirds of the remaining space, and there's one news story to fill out the rest, the kind of freeze-dried affair that keeps for two weeks. Such a front-page yells its contempt at its readers. We know the IDIOTS at KR engage in such gimmicks because they know if they do REPORTING it chases the customers away (largely because the reporting is likely to be DEMOCRATS GOOD REPUBLICANS BAD stuff, but you don't tell the HACKS how to think when THEY tell YOU). So we run show-biz plugs and empty-calorie sports typing and chase them away. Either way, they lose. We hope McClatchy gets stuck with a giant goose egg on its ledgers.

Indeed we've noticed an emerging MO with the hacks, and it mirrors exactly what THE CONSPIRACY is doing to the movies: put out basest JUNK eighty percent of the time, and campaign for AWARDS the rest. (We think one reason run-of-the-mill news hackery stinks is that so many reporters and editors are engaged solely in non-stop reporting and campaigning for awards and their outfits thus lack the resources for anything else.) We see AWARD-WINNING STORIES as but parallels for the arthouse fodder the movie trade uses to justify its maggotry the rest of the year. But then these bizzes have so many parallels it's unfunny. Movie types are effete snobs; so are news hacks. Movie snobs think the public is stupid; so do news hacks. Movie snobs are knee-jerk liberals; so are news hacks. Movie snobs are trying to put themselves out of business. NUF SED.