NYT Hall of Fame sports front

I think it was a brilliant stroke. A print publication made themselves the successor to a story that had already been beaten to death on the Internet and elsewhere. It's early January and the Jets and Giants are out of the playoffs, so why the hell not?

 

I think that's a great point. It was very old news by the time the paper came out, and it was far from unexpected to begin with.

I'd like it better if it was a monumental shock that no one was voted in.

 

My thoughts:

It's too cute by half. Like YGBFKM said, that's a lot of space and a lot of attention some something that doesn't really warrant it. It also doesn't tell the story. People here keep saying it's a statement. The only statement I see is "no one got in," but the interesting part of the story is who was left out, and this doesn't address that.

Also, it aggravates me as a reader that my sports section is a fraction of the size it was a few years ago but I'm paying a lot more for it. I would rather be reading something instead of being expected to marvel at how clever the editors are. (I realize the space issue may not be an issue for the NYT that it is elsewhere, but I can't imagine there wasn't a better use for the space.)

 

It's not original, and it's not even no-one's-done-it-recently original. Less than a month ago, the newspaper in Weatherford, Okla., published a blank 1A to poke fun at the Mayan doomsday nonsense.

http://jimromenesko.com/2012/12/21/weatherford-daily-news-staff-apparently-went-home-early-to-deal-with-the-end-of-the-world/worldend/

The Weatherford front got a chuckle from me. The Times' front got an eye roll.

 

Ditto the longtime sports columnist in Tallahassee, when he died in 1993.

 

The Old Grey Lady's Front.

 

I think this was awful, immature and pointless. No one got in. Great. Tell me, highly-paid New York Times baseball writers, why this is a big deal, why it happened and what it means. This was a joke.

 

Bill McGrotha of the Tallahassee Democrat did likewise in the early '70s after an FSU loss to Florida.

 

Once you attract a reader, you better give him something to read.

Mission failed.

When my former shop when through its uber-design phase a few years ago, we often had spectacular presentations for stories of little or no substance. But at least there WERE stories.

 

It got people talking about the paper. Even for a big paper like the NY Times, if people are talking about you you've done something right.

For that reason I like it. (and also, it's pretty easy for me to plagiarize to make my own copy)

 

If you want to make a bold statement, have someone write a bold column.

 

Nice to see them try to illustrate a story with design.

For some folks it worked, for some folks it didn't.

They'll probably do something different with the 354 or so fronts they'll put together before the end of this year.