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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Lileks reviews the LA Times |
| 2008-04-08 |
| Part of today's "Bleat" The papers suck. Pardon the language, but for heaven’s sake, the papers sucked. The papers sucked hard enough to pull Jupiter out of orbit. I had gotten used to the underwhelmingly ordinary Arizona paper, but the LA Times and the San Diego paper were a new level of sucktitudinousness. The SD paper was like a slab of Sominex pounded into thin folded sheets, and I don’t know if it was the lead story – “Sweeping Regulatory Powers Sought,” or something equally deadly – or the cookie-cutter design, but man, that thing was dull; when I finished I felt like I’d put 50 cents into a soda machine, got nothing, and realized I didn’t really want any soda anyway. On to the LA Times, which surprised me – I have almost no experience with the paper, except its reputation, which surely was exaggerated. Well. I blew through it quickly, and when I was finished the only impression it left was astonishment that a market that large had such a weightless, arid, aimless paper. It has the typeface of a better paper, but that’s about it. I finished both before I was halfway through my Ironed Chicken Sandwich – really, it was so thin, that’s probably how they cooked it – and I spent the rest of my time reading the internet on my iPhone. I wandered down the street to a coffee shop, had some ice cream, and finished my news reading on the iPhone. If I’d never had one of those “you know, newspaper might be in trouble” moments, that would have been it. . . . |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #4 But Frank G is correct about the Mexican food in Old Town. It really is good. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2008-04-08 15:30 |
| #3 The UT is in dire straits with layoffs and declining subscriptions. No wonder. It really is a rag. I don't read it anymore. I don't feel like I'm missing much because they never reported the real news anyway and it's what they don't report that worries me. It's been clear for a long, long time now that this town is being run by developers who are some of the biggest advertisers the UT has left. They've ruined it. Hundred year old water mains break on a regular basis and flood the streets. The streets are full of potholes. The freeways are clogged with traffic. The police and fire fighters are under paid and bailing out. And then there is the pension fund for city employees...or should I say the unfunded pension obligation? The mayor was on TV a while ago crowing about a recently completed audit of FY 2006 city finances. Well, that's cool because FY 2009 is right around the corner. It used to be a nice little town. Now it's just an overgrown LA suburb with crumbling infrastructure. But you'd never know it from reading the UT. As for the LA Times, I used to try to read it but I couldn't. They'd beat around the bush for six or seven paragraphs before getting to the point. I just didn't have time for it. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2008-04-08 15:29 |
| #2 The underwhelmingly ordinary Arizona paper = The Arizona Republic. Frank - Consider the source. Once you've had Mexican food in Minneapolis, everything else is 'krep'... |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-04-08 10:59 |
| #1 really whiney on the Old Town part. Old Town Mexican Cafe is a glorious place for me - fresh tortillas, great tacos and chimis and the margaritas! God, I'm making myself hungry....Oh yeah, the papers mostly suck - UT Sports isn't bad, but the rest has gone wayyyyy downhill. I've NEVER liked the LAT |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-04-08 08:25 |