Mayor Sam Ends Silence on "New" LA Times Website
For some reason my views on the recent redesign of the Los Angeles Times website seem to be hotly sought.
This type of issue is really the beat of Pulitizer Prize claiming uberjournalist Kevin Roderick, best known to Mayor Sam readers as Westside White Guy, former denizen of America's suburb and the Westside's most prominent suburban Anglo crank. Indeed, Old Kev was all over the breaking news like a 13 year old blogger jumping on the latest Hannah Montana CD release.
So what's my opinion? I could care less. The Times has thrown up something looks like a free Wordpress theme and that's supposed to make a diference?
The bottom line is that template be damned, THE OLD GRAY HAG ON SPRING STREET's best days are behind it. Changing the website layout does nothing if the content continues to stink and that the Times continues to cede actual coverage of City politics to the Jill Stewart era LA Weekly which continues to shine and continues to serve.
All of that being it is what it is, it certainly is appropos that the cosmetic change to a newspaper website is a trending topic in vapid and vacuous LA.
This type of issue is really the beat of Pulitizer Prize claiming uberjournalist Kevin Roderick, best known to Mayor Sam readers as Westside White Guy, former denizen of America's suburb and the Westside's most prominent suburban Anglo crank. Indeed, Old Kev was all over the breaking news like a 13 year old blogger jumping on the latest Hannah Montana CD release.
So what's my opinion? I could care less. The Times has thrown up something looks like a free Wordpress theme and that's supposed to make a diference?
The bottom line is that template be damned, THE OLD GRAY HAG ON SPRING STREET's best days are behind it. Changing the website layout does nothing if the content continues to stink and that the Times continues to cede actual coverage of City politics to the Jill Stewart era LA Weekly which continues to shine and continues to serve.
All of that being it is what it is, it certainly is appropos that the cosmetic change to a newspaper website is a trending topic in vapid and vacuous LA.
Labels: kevin roderick, Los Angeles Times, who cares
Posted by Michael Higby @ 8/13/2009 09:03:00 PM
19 Comments:
The reason I asked you on the other string Hig-dork, is because it's relevant to this blog, since you seem to quote from the Times a lot.
Whether or not you care about the subject, you should be mature enough, though you obviously aren't, to put your personal choices aside in favor of actually telling us what's going on so we can comment about it.
Dumbass.
I switched from Arial to Georgia at the beginning of the year, because I not only like to quit blogs, I even like to quit typefaces.
Higby she's outed herself as Retarded Superstar, Don Quixote and having a masculine side the gender confused loon!
What in the world are you talking about 9:42? Who are YOU?
Together, Arial and Georgia are unstoppable (the new MS template will be a good example of the two working as a team). The Times went wrong by replacing all Arial with all Georgia. Combined with a) a clumsy layout and b) poor use of space, the result is something nearly as repellent.
By the way, the LA Weekly needs major help, and I'm here for them. Just sayin'. Call me.
I loved the art and fonts on JM's blog. I'd go with his blog quits whenever an art choice is at issue.
Retarded Superstar said...
What in the world are you talking about 9:42? Who are YOU?
Ah, hah that is the question MC, isn't it?
I like Helvetica. Guess who I am, Mary.
ha ha ha
The LA Weekly is a mess. Why haven't we heard mor about it? Soloman, go there now!! Break down the doors and tell them you're changing that font, by gump.
I hate those colors on the Weekly blog. Come clean, Higby, why have you be silent about it?
Higby, the typeface and web design of Downtown News is just bad. Please devote a whole thread to how it sucks 'cause it needs you now.
"Cash For Clunkers" is a category. Nuff said.
Woo Hoo, the Slimes redesigned their website. And I was having coffee and toast when it happened. Thanks a bunch Mayor Sam.
And Mary, I like the font called, Baskerville Old Face. What does that say about me? Who am I?
It just may be that the people who are more or less ignoring their websites can still afford to ignore them for a while longer, but the people who invested so heavily in their websites are now obliged to keep throwing good money after bad and keep chalking up the drawing board to make it work as best they can.
The Times panicked when they saw the blogosphere. It positively drove them insane. The blogosphere didn't kill the newspaper--the Times' own reaction to it did.
The Velvet Coffin has always implied a lazy streak. Beginning in the late '90's, Times scribes and editors found it easier to click around than to do actual journalism.
They also thought the rest of the world was clicking too. It wasn't, and especially their own fiftysomething readership wasn't.
So they spent tens of millions on their online environment when they should have saved at least one of those millions for their own failing print presses.
It's like a bunch of people with pea shooters showed up at the castle, and the people in the castle not only surrendered immediately, but also made the pea shooting technology their own top priority.
Mailander is right. And design does not matter anymore. Its content. The Times could put all their stories in a published Google Doc and it would be excellent if the stories were true coverage.
I have to know this.
Did somebody really care what Mayor Sam thought about the LA Times website? Did I miss something?
Dont insult regarded people. There are people that have disabilities.
But some people do not have disabilities they just have no brain or nothing in their brain. Like many of those on the city council.
Get an education and learn the difference!!
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