What bugs me?

For the record, I know that many of you are laughing right now. I know it sounds like a lot of things bug me…and maybe I do have a higher ratio of "crap that bugs me" vs. "what I like", but to compensate, when I like something, I really like it and get completely consumed. I do think this somehow justifies my rants, right or not.

Some might even say that I use the words “bug” or “annoy” more than necessary, or give them more weight than most, and that perhaps a term I should use would be more in line with a definition like “what I am currently giving thought to, or analyzing for merit”.

In any case, my issue today is with Redeye. A daily publication that the Tribune Company puts out for free. It is a small daily that originally was marketed to a younger crowd, perhaps by some to be thought of as “hipper” or more "on the move". I have recollection that it initially cost $ .25, but has been free for many months now.

I do not understand what they are doing with this publication. I hear that many people pick it up just for the Soduko. A craze that I do not take part in, but can understand, and see merrit to a free publication using this as a hook. You would think that at some point they would start to charge again, or maybe they hope to move readership over to the real paper they publish, that you pay for, who knows?

My main beef is that they are just rehashing what is found on many on-line gossip sites the day before (or weeks). I read a lot of on line gossip sites and I have yet to read anything that I hadn’t read on Gawker, The Superficial or Defamer a day or more before.

That said it is not an altogether bad idea to target that population that doesn’t use the internet but wants their ridiculous (perhaps salacious) celebrity (or semi-celebrity) gossip. However, I don’t know who that is or if they exist in enough of a population to cater to. People who are stalkers in training scour the net daily, nightly and probably while sleepwalking and probably don't need Redeye to tell them day-old gossip. Unless of course they use it to feel superior, which is a thought.

My secondary beef is the commentary, or the “Columnists”. My god do they and their writting topics suck. It is so second rate college paper bullshit. Commentary that strikes me as being written by someone who is far less clever and observant than they think they are. It is like a blog that has been printed up for me daily, and not even a good blog.

I guess they are journalists, technically, but really, their job looks (to me) to be little more than surfing the web for a few hours and then choosing a topic to complain about in a way that a twenty-something who doesn’t have a computer would find hilarious over a beer (or coffee), or perhaps would think to themselves “that is funny because it is true, I’ve seen it”.

The worst of the worst is Leo Eborsole, I have rarely read anyone who is so NOT funny, yet clearly thinks he is “the shit”. Even his picture reeks of smarmy hipster-post-jock-smart-ass. At this point maybe you are saying that I am "just jealous" that I don't have a job that allows me to make money by surfing the web, which I do by choice for hours anyway. Perhaps you are right and that is part of it, however, this is not a job I would really want, for many reasons I wont go into here.

And then there is the “gossip” on the back, again, surf the web for an hour, find a couple topics to pass onto the guy who is the “designer” to slap together with photos found on the first search of Google images and bingo, you have the back page. Seriously, I am very sure I could put their back page together in about two hours. Again, I know this smells of jealously and the age old modern art complaint of "my three year old could do that", but when a shoe fits so well...

In summary, Redeye bad.

One more pointless note, did you know you could get it delivered to your house? I would love to know what the subscriber numbers are on that, but considering the past history of stats the Tribune company has put out I don’t know that I would believe it.