Tribune Co. 'Chief Innovation Officer' Delivers More Laugh Lines

Fair point, and one that needs to be asked of execs when they roll this out.

 

I wouldn't buy it. As was said here, too magazineish...

 

I'm no designer by any means but that is pure awful. Too much going on. Masthead is on steroids. Too boxy. If they want innovative why does it look like a four-square court?

 

My comment: Awful in both a design and marketing sense. Won't appeal to the current readership, and won't steal readers from the free Redeye.
Theyought to leave the paper alone and redesign the website. Work on the future, not the past.

 

A couple comments about this clown.

1. He is a fraud, and this reflects on Sam Zell. I am one year younger than he is, so if he invented album-oriented rock on FM radio, he did it when he was 13 years old.

2. I have seen team logos in newspapers. This isn't a new idea.

3. From laobserved, quoting Mr. Innovation: *WHEN NOT TO CHANGE: If circulation/ratings are trending UP, maybe a good idea to stay put. Mr. Innovation, you are a genius.

4. As far as the only two percent will be ticked off and they will all call, that is baloney. I remember a paper I worked at changed the obituary page, leaving just the death notices but eliminating most of the writing on obituaries, which often repeated most of what was in the death notice. We expected some complaints, but figured it would blow over fairly quickly. Instead, it got worse. After calling, people started getting petition signatures. I knew the idea was toast when a 28-year-old friend of mine, about four years older than me at that point, asked why we had changed to obituaries.

 

What's the difference between a death notice, an obituary and a funeral notice?

 

Some places it depends on if it is paid or not.
Death notices tend to be free, while an obit is paid.
I've never worked at a place that broke out the funeral notices from the death notices.

 

Jay, at our place, obits are free (and rare these days), death notices are paid. Never heard of separate funeral notices.

 

Local paper has death notices ("Joe Blow, 76, a former statistician, died Monday"), which are free, and funeral notices, which are paid and written by the funeral home and/or surviving family. Actual obituaries only get written for somebody important.

 

You remember that guy from "Scanners"? That's what my head feels like right now. Is that how his memos really look? Get him the hell away from a newspaper. I hope he never writes anything for the actual paper. Otherwise. It wOuLD LoOk LIKE ThIS!!!!
Look at me, I'm Crazy Lee Abrams .. gIvE Me sOmE CANDY!!!

 

I try like hell to be open-minded to new ideas. I'd have a little bit of respect for this guy if he actually had any. What an embarrassment to Tribune Company.

 

As someone once put it, when cars put the horse and buggy out of business, the last thing you wanted to do was make a better buggy whip.