Unintentional editorial of the day
The Times is reporting that the P-I, under the terms of the newly extended JOA, may become a tabloid. Obviously, “tabloid” as used here refers to the way the paper is put together physically - see The Stranger or The Chicago Sun-Times for a good example. But that doesn’t stop me from wondering how far the P-I would go towards earning that tabloid description and whether the Times isn’t doing a bit of editorializing with their headline. Because I’ll be honest, if I want to read unfounded accusations about men operating cranes while high on meth or have a yearning desire to know which celebrity walked down a red carpet last night, I immediately go to the P-I. I save the Times for stodgy, out of touch editorials.
Isn’t it nice to live in a two newspaper town?
I think it’s great news. There are plenty of quality papers here and abroad in this format — Times of London, Rocky Mountain News, The Sun-Times, the Boston Herald, etc.
I’d love it, though, if they’d be even more different and go to the Berliner format. Kind of a neutral ground between the tabloid and the broadsheet.
Agreed; I like the tabloid format. But it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the P-I went all the way and became the New York Post of Seattle.
The irony here is that the paper who’s closest to a tabloid in the *editorial* sense is definitely the Times. (Yes, yes, they have their Pulitzer squad - performing the equivalent of our local TV news’ hard-hitting sweeps-month “investigations” - but they’re sequestered far away from the hack columnists and “Girl About Town” reporters.)