Rachel Maddow to Write Monthly Column for Washington Post

As a fan since Unfiltered on the ill-fated Air America Radio Network, it's cool to see Rachel Maddow hit even more career high marks. Good for her. In a time when liberal voices are being silenced, even in very liberal cities (both Los Angeles and San Francisco's liberal talk radio stations are switching to Limbaugh/Hannity/Beck), it's good to see one of the best getting another venue.

[Excerpt]

Rachel Maddow to write Washington Post column
 
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow will write a monthly column for the Washington Post, Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt said in a memo to staff Wednesday morning. "We expect that she will bring to Post readers the strong arguments, sharp wit and thoughtful analysis of political and social issues that have made her show an Emmy Award winner," Hiatt said. . .

Read more at: Politico

USA Today Destroys its Brand

Meh. Click to embiggen. Image from LA Times.

Redesigns of familiar brands are often very dicey. We're not just judging new versus old, we have an emotional attachment to the established design, whether we are conscious of it or not. Sometimes it goes smoothly, as when Burger King updated its image subtly, or when rival Jack in the Box changed theirs significantly. Neither was decried as a step too far.

But often, if the change isn't seen as an improvement, it can be derided, maybe even damage the brand. When Pepsi changed its familiar red and blue yin/yang globe to one that looks more abstract, designers and fans almost universally panned it. The jury is still out on Microsoft's and eBay's new, minimalist logos, but many find them quite boring. And the most disastrous redo was by GAP, which met such hostility with its logo change, that it decided to throw it out, and keep the old one.

The "before" here wasn't a winner either. But the
red and blue globe was a mainstay. Image from LogoTalk.

USAToday should do the same. I realize that in a changing media world, a newspaper must change with the times. And USAToday has been derided for a long time as "McPaper." But tell me, how did their long-time, established design differ from how a typical web page is set up? It already was laid out with news nuggets and charts, and brightly colored eye-grabbers. USAToday was a web page before we knew what they were!

The logo that never was. Image from LogoTalk.

Now? It just doesn't hold together. As a designer, I'd have a hard time ever liking the new design. The logo is NOT an improvement, and its juxtaposition with a Futura Bold decimalized, six-digit date does not read well. It looks like an unfinished pie chart, a placeholder, or part of an ad. Besides just floating there, looking incomplete, the date does not work in this format. First, the decimals are a cutesy, trendy way to write phone numbers these days, I do not know why, but it's true. Also, in the USA, we put the month first, and in other parts of the world they put the day first, so the date will be unclear to many who read it.

Looks like a web page to me. 

On the whole, I declare it a disaster. They've taken away the brand identity, and produced an ugly product that looks like it was rushed out before it was finished. I can't imagine that this tests particularly well, or how they decided it was "better." Different sure, not better. There was room for improvement, and for streamlining, but they took it too far.

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USA Today launches redesign

The newspaper that introduced the world to the infographic is getting a makeover. Thirty years after the launch of the new national newspaper, USA Today unveiled a new logo, a more colorful look and bulked-up coverage of technology and travel. It also unveiled a digital redesign that gives the news operation a consistent look on its relaunched website and on mobile devices. . .

Read more at: Los Angeles Times

Funniest Newspaper Corrections

OK, enough of politics, politics, politics. For now. Here's something a little lighter and fluffier for a change.

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The Funniest Newspaper Corrections Ever: Retracting The Ridiculous

We understand fudging a couple details every now and then. Misprinting a statistic, perhaps? It's bound to happen at some point and a newspaper should dutifully take responsibility. But these screw-ups take newspaper corrections to a whole new level. It's amazing how many people are wrongfully called prostitutes. Hey editors, not everybody in the news is trying to turn tricks!

See them all at: Huffington Post

Justify My Blog (A Response to Randi Rhodes)

I want to start this post by saying I adore Randi Rhodes, and am thrilled that she has returned to the radio airwaves. Her show is the highlight of my work day. But being a fan doesn't mean being slavishly in agreement with all that she says. And today, she pissed me off.

Randi got into the topic of newspapers, and the fact that their readership numbers are down, and that they're going out of business. From there, she launched into an attack on bloggers, demonizing them (us) as the reason for that, seemingly. Bloggers were pretty much maligned as one of the scourges that is keeping America down. That doesn't sit very well with me, a blogger.

I gather that what drives her anti-blogger sentiment is having been featured on them in unfair, unflattering, or inaccurate ways. She did discuss having been written about without ever having been contacted. I'll confess to having written a great many Randi Rhodes pieces here on this blog, though I had absolutely no way of knowing how to contact her, or any realistic expectation that she'd take the call.

But Randi's criticisms of blogging didn't just annoy me because I'm a blogger. The criticisms just didn't ring true. After all, many, many of my blog posts are dependent upon newspaper reporting, and link directly to them so that they may be. . .um. . .read. Also, while it is true that a subject of a blog article is very likely going to find fault with it, the very same is true about newspapers, radio and television. If you have ever been involved in an incident that becomes news, you are aware that the facts of the story--whatever the venue--are very often inaccurate.

What Randi ought to know about blogging is that there is a symbiotic (and not altogether different) relationship between blogs and talk radio, which is her format. One example would be the effort of many of us bloggers to find out what was up with The Randi Rhodes Show after it went off the air unexpectedly. We had little to go on, and much of the speculation was crazy and silly. But it kept the topic alive, and kept interest alive as the months wore on. I got more "hits" to the site when I'd post something about her than I got on much of anything else.

The blogosphere is a loose community, with very close ties to Randi's audience. We find places here to congregate, meet, argue, whatever. And we talk about a variety of issues, including talk radio and the hosts that populate it. We are probably very much a part of why the Democrats now hold sway in Washington. We generate interest in "below the radar" stories, much like Randi does.

I don't think most of us profess to be professionals, or pretend that our word is law. Right at the top left of this page, under "mission statement" I make it very clear that I'm not the final word. Much like Randi, I want you to read anything I say with a critical eye, and not take my word--or anyone's--as gospel. When it comes right down to it, even the experts and the real journalists can't always be relied upon to be accurate. Look at CNBC or the Wall Street Journal and their inability to predict our current financial woes.

The truth is, many of the people who dispense information aren't all that much different from me, the humble blogger. What are Rush Limbaugh's or Sean Hannity's qualifications for being know-it-alls? None. Zero. I will not put Randi into this category (because just, ugh), though many would. I happen to know that she's prepared, has countless sources, and does her homework. But on the issue of bloggers, she was being overly general, and didn't get it right.

Rant over. Still love ya, Randi!