I’m not entirely sure why, but the Arizona Daily Star is making me particularly grumpy lately. It’s possible that my sabbatical from listening to anything on 104.1 “The Truth” is leading me to find new media to be annoyed by and there’s certainly solid journalistic work being done by the daily newspaper, but there are a few things they keep doing over on South Park that just drive me nuts. So, here’s my brief roast of the Star.
First up, the NFL season is upon us this week, so we have a weekly slideshow of hot cheerleaders to look forward to on Mondays for 20 weeks or so on the front page of azstarnet.com. Admittedly, we have some ads that push the limits of decency in the back of our print issue each week, but I just can’t sort out what vague news-related justification the powers that be there have for running a series of photos of attractive women in socially acceptable minimal amounts of clothing on a weekly basis right up front online. However, I almost think the seemingly daily mugshot slideshow might be less ethically justifiable. There’s no context to those photos of people on their worst day, just an opportunity to mock those who may or may not end up convicted of anything. I get the need to juice traffic numbers, but at some point, someone has to ask whether there’s some collateral damage to how the insititution itself is perceived. It might just be me, but every time I see the cheerleaders or mugshots pop up on the top left of the webpage, my enthusiasm for reading anything else on the page drops considerably.
The other thing, and this is a far more petty complaint, but is there any value whatsoever gained from reporting the monthly special at Subway? Does anyone really need editorial content announcing “Subtember”? Probably not.
On a note likely unrelated to the Star, we found a new comic to run, so check out Arnie Bermudez’s new strip, Fish Wrap online. Also, the very smart David Safier debuts as a regular/non-guest columnist this week. Thanks for reading.
This article appears in Sep 5-11, 2013.
The question I always ask when running across those slideshows: is there really a viable readership base among those who haven’t figured out how to find pictures of boobies on teh Interwebz?
The Star’s website is a train wreck. It looks like an arcade game when you open it up and finding actual news articles is a task. Not to mention that there’s so many pop ups, slide in, and flashing ads that it takes forever to load. I hate it.
104.1 FM radio is entertaining but that is about all it can be! Today listened to the regular guest, Katie P…..the editor of some little known right wing blog, a now guest on fox and friends, just out of college less than a year or so! Imagine a child is used by Jon Justice as a shill for right wing snake oil cure all that ails you! One would imagine they could dredge up a older shill with real life experience! Imagine this kid with no life experience just out of college opines on world events, military matters and has no experience in any of them! I think poor Jon Justice aka just his alias since he hides his real name due to the scandal of dog hoax from Michigan where he had to flee in disgrace to Tucson! Sad but what can one say, Tucson does have its few thank god right wingers addicted to the right wing snake oil, cure all that ails you stuff they peddle! Like the old western peddlers of another time who peddled bottles of syrup laced with a bit of alcohol it cured nothing but did get them a bit tipsy!
I read you guys because you don’t report sports, and that seems to be all the star is interested in is sports. It is very hard to find news in between the sports articles, and when you do find a piece of news it is repeated several times.
Grumpy, pissy, gassy. Loosening moral standards. All signs of aging.
I don’t know, but if it displaces a ‘breaking news story’ about one or more of the Kardashians, then, I’m all for it.
It’s a crying shame that The Weekly and Sentinel got scooped on the “subtember” story. Step your game up, Gibson and Smith!