Why Don’t Newspapers Just Write The Best Story Ever?
Newspapers have been having problems, and whatnot. Why have they not asked US Vaity Fair editor Graydon Carter’s advice sooner? Despite this error, Graydon Carter has deigned to stop having amazing sex for a few minutes to tell you how to save newspapers:
Just find the best story ever and then write it, Problem Solved:
My suggestion to newspapers everywhere is to give the public a reason to read them again. So here’s an idea: get on a big story with widespread public appeal, devote your best resources to it, say a quiet prayer, and swing for the fences.
Graydon gives the example of the current expense scandal that threatens to literally topple the government of England. That story was dug up by a newspaper! Instead of whining about “the internet” and “bankruptcy,” why don’t all newspapers also dig up stories-of-a-lifetime and then put them on the front page, really big?
Graydon Carter is fairly sure the Washington Post sold some papers off that, whatsit, Watergate thing. More of that.
[VF]
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@Mount_Prion: C.U.C.A.R.A.C.H.A.: Oddly, "Zoinks!" comes out on the plus side.
Marc Bolaño
@HiredGoons: But they were upper middle class gay polyamorous electro-ejaculation murderers
Kitten_Witawip
Someone needs to show that delusional old poop a computer soon... Even if whoever finally does it ends up getting fired for keeping this fascinating invention from him for all these years.
City_Dater
Build. More. Outhouses.
@Kid Twist: really now, that's much more of a 'Post' sort of story, isn't it?
I'm sorry, but that's no reason to stop having amazing sex at all, much less for a few minutes.
kneetoe
@foofybunny: Graydon LOVES Englishy things.
Kitten_Witawip
@foofybunny: That worked for the English too.
They could sell fish inside of them. And fried potatoes.
The expense scandal was uncovered when the Telegraph agreed to BUY the information from a source.
So they should just forget about those pesky "ethics" and sell papers?
Randall Tex Cobb
I thought he was going to suggest that newspapers open their cafeterias to the public, as a way to cash in on journophilia. That sounds like a guaranteed money maker to me.
SultanaEleusis
@Vic_Damocles: I think he means stories about gay polyamorous electro-ejaculation murders.
Sounds like GC has been spending a little too much time in the Conde bunker. The Times, like a lot of papers, breaks big stories all the time and they're still screwed. Those five '09 Pulitzers weren't for basket-weaving.
Unless by "big stories," Graydon means monthly features on the Kennedys and Marilyn Monroe, and anything loathsome hack Dominick Dunne feels like writing.
Vic_Damocles
You lose In-Touch-With-Reality Points when you start an article with "Goodness".
@Kid Twist: GOLD STAR.
A.G. Sulzberger is already on it.